


The War

by LUCIFER_VLOGS



Category: Homestuck
Genre: 1984 sort of thing?, F/M, M/M, Multi, Worldbuilding, also a love triangle, crazy space war au, idk man just read the summary, past one-sided john/dave, sort of an enders game thing, state of space war, strict empire sort of stuff, war between trolls and humans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LUCIFER_VLOGS/pseuds/LUCIFER_VLOGS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Trolls thought they were coming home, but Earth had a different answer. A hundred years later the solar system is divided by the War between Humanity and Trollkind. Brother of the human diplomat, Dave Strider struggles to fit into a world of hate. Karkat Vantas’ anger destroys everything in his path after his cousin’s failed rebellion. And Terezi Pyrope is caught between polar opposites.<br/>The War is a Homestuck AU which is a result of a lot of worldbuilding, which will be revealed as the story progresses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Empress

**Humanity’s first voyage beyond the confines of their solar system would prove to be their greatest triumph and worst mistake.**

**The crew of the starship, Empress of Earth, departed in the year 2099 to scout the extremities around the orbit of Eris and the Kuiper Belt. A flux in the area beyond the clutches of our star’s gravity captured the eyes of the captain, known today as only the Wiionic, the greatest technological mind of the 21 st century. The Wiionic broke course and made the decision to investigate what looked to be a “hole” in space.**

**His investigation was what allowed for space travel to be viable, but his curiosity in this matter would kill more than the proverbial cat.**

**The Empress of Earth would not be seen again for over 200 years.**

 ---

Dave Strider glared at the government officials over his sunglasses.

“The boy is useless,” the general hissed, “he has no worth as a hostage and is too old for any sort of re-education to be attempted.”

“Don’t weld horns to my skull,” Dave interjected, “it’ll clash with my untameable swag.”

The stripe-clad general glared at him.

“And he has his elder’s impudence,” the troll growled into the console.

“What would you suggest, Dualscar?” a bored voice crackled as it exited the speaker embedded into the long table they sat at.

Dave was surprised- thought the emotion was concealed behind reflective glasses. In his brother’s whole life as a diplomat between Alternia and Earth, he’d never met the Troll Empress, even heard her voice, only read her written letters. And now Dave could, albeit over shitty speakers at his second trial. She didn’t sound like the ruthless tyrant responsible for the deaths of millions of human soldiers and civilians.

 _I guess she has off days_ , Dave thought to himself.

“Trolls in the streets call me The Orphaner,” General Dualscar said pompously, “I would not hesitate to take the life of another orphaned human.”

Dave frowned as his species was turned into a slur, and his life was decided by this douchebag.

“What purpose would the boy’s death serve, O great Orphaner?” the Condesce’s mocking made Dave smirk.

“To strike fear into the hearts of humanity,” Dualscar spat, “We could string his entrails upon your flagship, my lady, and-”

“That is quite enough, Dualscar. Murdering an innocent child will scare no one.”

“Innocent?” the troll nearly spat into his microphone, “must I remind you, Meenah, the treasons his brother committed?”

“Use that name in public again and I will cut out your tongue,” the female voice went cold; it even ruffled Dave, “and may I remind you, Cronus, that the child has already proven his innocence of any affiliation with his brother’s crimes in the previous trial.”

That had been an arduous affair. After the execution, Dave had undergone rigorous questioning over whether he’d been assisting Dirk Strider in passing troll knowledge to humanity. They had taken his sunglasses, believing them to be a tool to conceal his lies. They’d seen him cry. (He’d told them it was a human reaction to loss of being cool).

“There is nothing more to say. Make the necessary preparations, send him to one of the hives.”

Dualscar was stuttering. “My lady…Condesce…I beseech you to rethink…this traitor must be punished-”

“Will you make me repeat myself, Dualscar?”

There was silence on Dave’s end of the line.

“Perfect. Are there any other issues?”

“Only one, Empress. There is only one room unfilled in the Alternian hives. It…it is the Vantas boy’s.”

Now it was the Condesce’s turn to be silent, and Dave knew why. Everyone, at least on Alternia, all information had been blocked from reaching the other colonies, knew about the civil disturbances led by Kankri Vantas.

But Dave knew that Kankri had been killed- and done so brutally. The soft-spoken boy who had broadcasted preaching of peace had screamed and cursed everything when he had been chained and tortured. It was a lesson to the other trolls, that the only path was war, and that defiance was to be prohibited.

Dave wished his brother had listened.

So the Vantas boy must be whatever troll relative Kankri had had. It wasn’t hard to see what was the problem with the arrangement. Put the traitor’s brother and the domestic terrorist’s cousin in one apartment…it sounded like some sort of xenophobic joke.

 _Well, my whole life could be categorized as a complex xenophobic epic of irony_ , Dave mused.

Trolls didn’t really get irony, Dave wasn’t sure if that was because the Empress’ crew had been dry as fuck or if it had been a secret lost over thousands of years. Regardless, Dirk and Dave had been the only ones within whole astrological units who got each other’s jokes.

It was ironic, because now Dirk was dead.

“They will be monitored,” the Empress sounded exasperated with the whole shitfuck of a situation, “now are we through?”

“Indeed. Goodbye, Condesce. Safe travels.”

“Peace out, Meenah,” Dave drawled, “Thanks for my life, I guess.”

Dualscar’s hand came down, hitting Dave hard across the face. He zoned out the troll general’s screeching about insulting the Condesce, nonchalantly dabbing the blood dripping out of his mouth on the edge of his shirt.

 _It’s already red,_ he thought as Dualscar continued to scream _, so who really gives a fuck?_

“Your red blood makes me sick, you grubfucker!” Dualscar raged, raising his hand to deliver another blow.

Dave looked at him lazily, then glanced at the communication device on the table. Dualscar glanced that way as well, to see that the Condesce was still on the line. Dave wasn’t really sure what slurs had been yelled at him but he had heard something about insulting his kismesis.

“Please exit the quarters, Dave,” the Empress said in a measured voice.

Dave smiled and got up, giving Dualscar a mocking bow before moving towards the door.

“CRONUS YOU BLITHERING BLUEBLOOD SCUM! SON OF A WHORE-”

“Meenah-! Meenah the human boy hasn’t left the room- He can hear-”

Dave smirked as he exited the conference hall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is my first chapter of a thing I'm trying out where I make Homestuck into my own Ender's Game/Star Trek gone wrong...thingy. Let me know if this insane twist is cool, or horribly offensive to everything you've ever known. Any feedback is helpful.
> 
> Also the beginning bit is the worldbuilding that sort of filters through, its like a textbook of how the Troll race came to be. So each chapter begins with boring textbook stuff yAy.


	2. Uncertainty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A propaganda class is interrupted by an enemy

**The infamous wormhole of 2099 was catalogued after the Empress missed 24 hours of communication with Earth. The starting point was studied in detail, but humanity had no way of knowing where the wormhole led. Only the crew of the Empress knew that it opened at the edge of another solar system. Most of the configured equipment was severely damaged in the cylinder between worlds, but the Empress’ undamaged scanners showed a planet about the size of Mars in traversable distance. The Wiionic made a desperate gamble. Believing that the infrastructure of the ship unable to survive a journey back through the wormhole, as well as not knowing where it would lead, he set course for the unnamed planet.**

 -----

Terezi Pyrope was doodling in red when the human arrived.

Not that her drawings could really be called doodling, if anything they were scribbles, or random paint that the beak of a bird had spread searching for feed on a piece of paper. Of course she could smell out lines and intersections, or bring the paper to her mouth to taste the contours of something that could be vaguely called “art”. But for a day like this, with a lesson like this, who could be bothered?

Terezi let her senses fade out, until she was just getting a hint of the smell of red; from her drawings as well as from Karkat Vantas sitting in front of her.

He always smelled like red, and not only today, when he wore a red t-shirt, his black licorice-scented hoodie abandoned on the back of his chair. Even when he had on a black turtleneck, his sign standing out in a sharp silver smell, there was always the undertone of cherry red.

She wasn’t sure if that was what she liked about him. He was really loud, like his voice was perpetually too loud on volume control. Sort of obnoxious, and a serious overuse, bordering on compulsive use of the word “fuck”.

“Fuck!” Karkat yelled from a foot in front of her. She could smell the streak of red she’d just slashed across her paper.

She frowned at the back of his fluffy hair, nubby horns peeking out of the dark chocolate tangled mess.

“Is there a problem?” Ms. Maryam glared at Karkat. The history between the two of them might have seemed to grant him some empathy from their teacher, but rather it made the Dolorosa hate the younger Vantas.

“Fuck,” he repeated, “yes. Yes there’s a fucking problem.” Terezi sighed. The hatred Ms. Maryam bore him was only reflected back to her, if anything, it was amplified.

The teacher, all in green, set down her pointer. The video paused at her will, showing a rare exciting moment in their mandatory propaganda classes: an exploding human transport ship full of settlers going to the base on Mars’ moon, Phobius.

Karkat winced visibly at the gore on the screen, and Terezi could smell how pale he was going. Despite his verbal violence towards basically everyone, Karkat was squeamish, just like his cousin had been.

“We have watched this exact footage before, Ms. Maryam!” Karkat said as if he were uncovering a great secret.

Everyone was quiet in the face of his absolute idiocy. Terezi sighed.

“KK we know,” Sollux lisped from the back of the class, where he’d previously been ‘helping Aradia with her homework’, “They repeat stuff all the time. Are you seriously just realizing that now?”

“Of course not, Sol,” Karkat nearly screeched, “but this exact footage has been screened THRICE IN A ROW!”

“Mister Vantas,” the Dolorosa said with a chill Terezi could almost smell, “This is Empire-approved material. Any discrepancies are imagined on your part.”

Karkat opened his mouth- assumedly to unleash another torrent of profanities- but Ms. Maryam’s pointer slammed down on his desk.

“We at the XXVIIIth hive school understand your personal disconformities, but are hoping you will consider re-education as an option,” their teacher moved close to Karkat, green lips brushing his black hair near his ear.

Her whisper was so quiet that none but Terezi (and obviously, Karkat himself) could hear the menacing growl: “ _or there is always room for you in the slave hives.”_

The slate scented aura of Karkat’s face turned into a sour milk white. Terezi swallowed her distaste at the exchange; she knew many hive instructors were even more twisted than the Dolorosa had become. Often with less reason.

Their instructor gathered herself and returned to the front of the classroom. The video resumed, and below the sound effects onscreen Terezi’s sensitive hearing could pick out Karkat’s breathing attempting to steady.

Terezi let the vacuum of space in lieu of screams of the dying lull her back into a doodling reverie.

When the lights in the classroom finally came back on, most students began to pack their bags. Terezi could hear Aradia and Sollux disentangling themselves in the back, and could smell the blueberry/cherry of his glasses being corrected on his nose. The Dolorosa’s pointing stick slammed down on her desk, silencing the bubble of chatter in the class.

“There is one last matter to attend to,” she stated, lips pressed in a tight green line.

_This can’t be good_ , Terezi thought, as the scent of interest and the less palatable stench of nervousness floated through filtered air.

“In light of recent events concerning the diplomacy between Earth and Alternia and the trial of Dave Strider-” the Dolorosa paused as murmurs of dissent swelled “-he has been assigned to a hive in our city, at our hive school-” the murmurs got louder, but Terezi couldn’t pick up any from the boy in front of her “-and will be sharing quarters with you, Mister Vantas.”

Silence fell. The Dolorosa turned to the door, and the human Dave Strider walked in.

_RED,_ was all Terezi could smell, hear and see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it continues! and has multiple POV. woop.


	3. New Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave Strider is given a "warm welcome", which translates into "gets slammed into a wall" in Alternian.

  **There is speculation that the Unnamed Planet and its existence at the end of the 2099 Wormhole is proof of a merciful god. Others say that it confirmation of the devil.**

**Despite religious authenticity, the planet the Empress of Earth crashed on was of M class; oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere and solid ground. Another stroke of luck was that the Empress’ landing gear was undamaged by the wormhole, and that the crash was not fatal to all passengers. Mechanic Horuss Zahhak is claimed by lore and confirmed by the Empress’ crew logs to be the first to have removed his oxygen mask and inhaled the alien air.**

**The presence of air confirmed the survival of the crew until the food stores ran out. Their next saviour could also be disputed as proof of God or Satan.**

 -------

There had to be some sort of sick, entirely shitty, wholly un-funny joke going on that Karkat wasn’t aware of. He glanced behind him, seeing shock on the faces of all his classmates. Sollux’s yellowing eyes were so wide that they were visible above the frames of his glasses. Aradia, beside him, looked like she was about to throw up. And Terezi…Terezi looked like she was suffering heart palpitations.

So, not a joke.

Karkat glared at the Dolorosa for a hard second before looking at the human.

He had pale, pale skin, but it was not grey. It was a pasty cream colour, flushed with pink that betrayed the gross red blood running beneath. Ugly and mottled in comparison to the grey marble of troll complexion. The human was lanky and tall like Sollux, and his head…by the Condesce’s flowing fucking hair. The lack of horns would be shocking enough but the Strider human’s hair was _white_. He wore black glasses obscuring the colour of his eyes, but as the Trolls were trained to know, Human eyes were white as starlight, with irises of mesmerising colour. You could not look closely at a human’s eyes, they said. If you looked too hard, you would loose your soul.

Karkat would never admit it, but he was glad that the human’s eyes were hidden behind the layer of black glass.

“Alright, you can stop undressing this with your eyes,” Dave drawled, “Who’s this Vantas character?”

“That’s me,” Karkat spat.

“Oh,” the human’s nearly nonexistent eyebrows raised, “the prime offender.”

“If you’re insinuating what I think you are, I think you can go soil your already blemished fuckpants with more human reproductive cream and then shit yourself so hard your urinary track explodes.”

There was a pause, before Sollux’s lisping laughter echoed throughout the class.

“Welcome to the XXVIIIth hive school of Alternia, Dave Strider,” the Dolorosa droned, before leaving the room, signalling their dismissal.

Karkat leapt from his chair to move to the back of the class. He nodded at Aradia, who was smoothly putting away books. Sollux had no such responsibility; he hadn’t even tried to look like he was ‘learning’.

“This has got to be the most asinine fucking joke in the history of shitty satire,” he burst out.

“It’s pretty funny,” Sollux grinned with sharp teeth.

“The irony of the situation is slightly bemusing,” Aradia droned nonchalantly.

“No,” Karkat hissed, “Fuck no. Hell fucking no. Is this some kind of test? Am I returning to my respiteblock tonight to find a fuckton of legislacerators ready to rip my ass out through my trachea? What the _fuck_ is going on?”

“Whoa, calm your tits, KK,” Sollux’s smile disappeared, “It’s probably not what you think.”

“Oh really? The hacker sitting in his room for days without a breath of fresh, filtered air presumes to spit truth at me from his holy fucking gawker? Enlighten me, O, great one, how shall I calm my ‘titths’?”

“No need to get pissy with me,” Karkat bit his lip to prevent further mocking of Sol’s pronunciation of ‘pissy’, “I’m just saying, the city is pretty backed up in the residential sector. Half our people are on the streets because they’ve been double or triple registered for the same blocks. You’re the only single respiter in the city, where surveillance is best, not to mention, you might be the only one on planet. They kept you alone before to keep you from ‘poisoning minds’ but you can’t poison the mind of a _human_ ,” Sollux shrugged, “Its pretty smart, although chances are it’s a giant mistake and they’re just rolling with it. It’s too smart for _them_.”

Karkat was trying to fathom a response that was both condescending and commending his friend for the knowledge, but Sollux was already sidling away with Aradia.

A frown deepened his face, and became more pronounced as he turned back to see Terezi Pyrope chatting up the human. A mid-blood, of all people. She was doing that thing where she feigned her blindness as an excuse to stand super close to people…another surge of rage spiked through Karkat and he blinked red out of his eyes. Calming himself, he walked over.

Terezi was chatting about how interesting Dave smelled. What a fucking weirdo.

“Your skin is like a smoothie of a bunch of smells, and if I could lick your arm I am sure it would be an absolutely delightful experience, especially if you had some sort of mortal wound. Red blood is, though undesirable, very delicious. Karkat!” She grabbed his arm, teal nails digging into his muscle and pulling him close, “This is Kar-crab, your roommate. He uses the word ‘fuck’ a lot and hates everything.”

“Delightful.” Oh, good, a fucking poet.

Karkat extricated himself from Terezi’s steel grip with difficulty. “Thank you for the gleaming fucking introduction. I think we should be leaving now.”

“I’ll come with you! It’s not that far out of the way.”

“Terezi, you live 10 fucking hives away from my respiteblock. I know, because you use that excuse-”

“Karkat, I am blind, you cannot expect these things from me.”

“WHAT IN THE LITERAL FUCK, TEREZI. YOU CANNOT PULL THE ‘BLIND’ CARD ABOUT EVERYTHING-” he saw Nepeta staring at them with wide eyes, glancing from Terezi and back to Karkat. He dropped his hands and looked at the human, who was grinning with his stupid, rounded, square-teeth.

“We are leaving,” Karkat hissed. The idiot held out his arm in what was obviously some sort of human social habit that Karkat didn’t give a rat’s shit about. He pushed by him and continued out the hall.

He didn’t have to look back to see if Terezi and Dave were following, because he could hear their conversation.

“Is he always like this?” Dave asked in a bored voice.

“Always,” Terezi said brightly, before continuing in another voice, “you must know why…”

“Of course I know why,” the human made no attempt to lower his voice.

A flash of red cut across Karkat’s vision and he sped up his pace.

 -------

After a ridiculous amount of chatting- 99% of it being Terezi alone- they arrived back at the despicably tiny accommodations called respiteblocks.

“Alright Terezi, you can fuck right the fuck off to Mars now,” Karkat grumbled through her morbid cheer.

“Awww, Karcrab, why are you being such a downer?” Terezi whined, once again standing close to him. He took a step away.

“Pyrope, if you don’t step the fuck off the nearest bodily-destructing meteor cliff I will fling your bitch ass so far into space the Venus station will only notice you when you burn up in the fucking sun,” he hissed in her face. She made a pouty face and flounced off, waving flirtatiously at the human.

Karkat gave her the middle finger and slammed the door.

And then was alone with the human.

They stood on the threshold of the room, Karkat’s short stature as always rigid with the rage that pumped through his body red as his blood. Dave, though taller, was bent over in a slouch.

“There’s a room right there. I don’t know how they plan to feed you shit but I cook-”

“I eat Troll food, dude. It’s not my first day on Alternia.”

“Oh. Well, that’s fucking good.”

Another pause.

“Is there anything else? Any sort of ‘bro code’ I should be aware of for ‘night-time activities’?” Dave drawled.

“What in the horse shitting fuck are you on about?” Karkat enunciated through clenched teeth.

“Well that Terezi girl-”

Before Dave could finish his sentence, and before Karkat himself even realized what he was doing, he slammed the human boy against the door.

“Don’t you dare fucking talk about her that way, you human shit stain,” he hissed, red flaring at the edges of his vision.

Dave put up his hands in mock surrender.

“It was a joke, but hey, this is what I expected,” Dave shrugged, “I honestly expected to be beaten to death about 12 seconds after walking into that classroom.”

The anger swelled and dropped, Karkat dropped his arms and walked to the kitchen. Dave brushed himself off and lounged on the couch. For some stupid reason, Karkat began conversing with the human.

“I’m not going to kill you, I’ve never killed anyone. Red blood is weak blood. I _couldn’t_ kill, nor would I ever be allowed to,” he recited off the lies to sate the microphones supposedly placed all over the hive.

“Really,” Dave’s question became a statement, “I thought they taught young Trolls to rip apart babies with their elbows alone, or something.”

Karkat stopped what he was doing and glared, “You said you lived here. How are you still that fucking obtuse?”

“I’ve been here for 3 years, plus, we were as isolated.”

“Years. So not long enough to learn something as fucking simple as the fact that we use a different calendar? Do you even know what a solar sweep is?”

“It’s a year.”

“And the fucking equivalency rate?”

“I don’t fucking know.” It was the first time Dave had cursed, a mockery of Karkat’s compulsive overuse. “My brother did the work.” There was a pause as the traitor was mentioned, and he added sarcastically, “Here come the secret police!”

Karkat didn’t rise to the bait.

“You could always join in,” Dave said jokingly, referencing the elephant in the room, and Karkat’s vision flared red.

_Blood running in the street, into the gutter. Trolls stepping back, as if the crimson liquid could taint them, destroy them. But the only one being destroyed was right there in front of them-_

Karkat had to clench his fists, digging yellow nails into grey flesh to pull himself out of the living nightmare. He turned around.

Dave must have taken a hint, because the room was empty.

 -------

Later that night, Karkat left the food on the table and went to bed early. It had been a fucking long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how this is going, Karkat is difficult to write for. Ah well, I can always edit. Any feedback is helpful.


	4. Alien Interaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nighttime on Alternia in the Vantas/Strider residence.

**The natives of the Unnamed Planet arrived into the waste where the Empress of Earth landed on the fifth day the crew had gone without food or water. Their timely arrival- only one crewman (the only woman) had died from starvation- gave them the nickname that was to be the only title for their race. Horuss Zahhak had called them angels; while their short stature made the Wiionic jokingly call them “Cherubs”. The information on the Cherubic race is foggy at best. Cherubs were described as humanoid with no hair and sharp bones. Their society was primitive, violent and godless. It is another stroke of luck that the humans arrived after the discovery of agriculture. The Cherubs lived in clans led by a vicious female who was made to kill her successor, much like Earth’s lion prides. The only clan brave enough to investigate the crash of the Empress was led by the cruellest of all Cherub leaders.**

**It is legend that the first word she heard the Wiionic speak to her took her fancy. It was “Empress”.**

 ---

Dave Strider had decided not to sleep.

It’s not like it would be any sort of issue. He was human; no one knew what exhaustion looked like on a human. And if they did, who would even give a shit?

As he settled onto the hard mattress- thankfully they’d remembered not to provide him with one of those gross troll beds- he contemplated the day.

It really hadn’t been bad at all, considering he was a xenobiotic foreigner that happened to be on the opposite side of an abominable space war. No jeering, no gang beating, not even a single death threat. It was almost disappointing.

It was probably because of the Terezi girl, Dave mused, lying on his back. She was what they called highblood- or perhaps not quite? Her sign was sort of a tealish blue, if anything. He combed his hands through his snow-white hair, trying to recall the details of their conversation.

“Would you like to debate the justice in the recent battles outside the Phobos moon bases?” Terezi had said.

“I’ve been a little out of the loop,” he’d told her dispassionately, “I was in prison for, like, a month.”  
“What is a month?” she demanded, before grabbing his arm and leaning in, “Can you smell that, Dave, with your little pink cotton-candy human nostrils? It’s all the fucks I give about what a ‘month’ is. Smell them as they waft away.”

“You have cotton candy?”

“Of course we have cotton candy, Dave. What kind of civilization does not have that kind of sweetly spun sugar concoction? None that I want anything to do with. Now, let me get you up to date about your species’ frivolous injustices to the Empire.”

And she’d gone on to detail the atrocities of the most recent clash between their cultures respective armies in a gleeful way. Bizarrely enough, Terezi seemed to delight in the bloodbath of it all, which would have been funny if it hadn’t been so stomach turning.

“…and that is just one of the thousand of reasons that your entire planet should be shown to the gallows,” she finished, grinning with sharp teeth on black lips.

“Cool,” Dave said, itching to pull out his phone. He hadn’t had a functional cell since Earth, but at least with Dirk he’d been able to keep it around like a cool guy’s security blanket. In the trials, it had been the first thing they’d taken, right before the sunglasses.

“Dave, how am I supposed to make conversation while you keep this cool guy routine going? I am trying to break cultural barriers and yet you sit behind those liquorice eye goggles like the coolest cool guy.”

“You are wearing glasses. Please tell me you people don’t call them eye goggles.”

“Dave we are not even people. This is the xenophobia that I am talking about! You already know something about me: I live for legislaceration. What is something you live for?”

He’d shrugged. “Art.”

Of course he meant rap and beats, but the weird alien girl had literally ripped out a piece of paper and started drawing.

“Here. This is you,” she handed him a shitty drawing of…something, “Now we’re friends.”

He’d put the drawing up on the blank grey wall, if only to piss his new roommate off. Karkat obviously seemed to think he had some sort of monopoly on all things Terezi, which was pretty hilarious.

Dave didn’t want to think about it, really. None of it. Not the fact that he was xenobiotically alone on this hunk of rock. Not the fact that he still saw Dirk and those fucking conference calls every time he closed his eyes. Not the fact that some alien chick seemed to have the hots for him. Not the fact that his new roommate looked like a blurry alien photocopy of John.

_John…_

Dave turned over and tried not to sleep.

 ---

**The Cherub Empress, or the Condesce, as she was natively known, provided food, shelter, hydration and any care to the humans. It is recorded that many other Cherubic clans fought her in her harbouring of humans, but she tore them to pieces with both her own warriors and the Wiionic’s adaptations of the starship’s armaments. A legend states that the second biggest clan on the Unnamed Planet attacked the Condesce and her humans. The clan was obliterated to the last Cherub by combination of the Condesce’s fanatic warriors and the Wiionic’s wildly advanced technology. The partnership between the Condesce and the Wiionic was mutually beneficial; his technology made her a goddess and her knowledge of the land gave him a chance at survival. The Condesce took the Wiionic to mate, despite the fact that he was an alien. It is rumoured that the Cherub Empress raped the human captain, but because there is no record of this incident aside from the obvious forthcoming evidence, that can neither be confirmed nor denied.**

**In a length of time that none can discern, the Condesce gave birth to the first human/Cherub hybrid. And unlike mules, the hybrid was fertile.**

\------- 

Karkat awoke with a pounding headache and a voice in his head.

“ _Why are y9u s9 angry, c9usin?”_

Kankri never shut up in life; it was foolish to believe he might do so in death.

_“Will y9u never st9p fighting?”_

Karkat drowned out the pleading whispers by getting up and stomping around the house, banging dishes and pans. It was easy; Kankri was a subtle, quiet whisper, and Karkat was loud.

As he dressed, stretching a black turtleneck over his grey skin, he heard a different sound. For a moment he thought it was in his head, before remembering that he no longer lived alone.

It sounded like his new roommate was dying, and all of a sudden Karkat was somewhere else.

_The handcuffs were a molten red, and the smell of flesh burning was nauseating. The screams seemed to burn the air even worse…_

Karkat was crouching alone in his room, crushed under the weight of the memories.

_The hatred poured off his convulsing body in waves of screams that Karkat thought would never end…_

And Karkat was standing again and shaking off the past, stomping so hard the downstairs hivedwellers would complain. He walked towards the human’s room and threw open the door with a crash.

“Secrete me an Earth river through your strange human tear ducts, erect an overpass and get the fuck over it, Strider,” he hissed over his dead cousin’s pleads for peace.

If Karkat could suffer in silence, so could the human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably going to be the last short, introductory sort of chapter. Things will probably get longer- in both wait time and amount of chapter content. The plot will start moving! More characters will emerge! But I'm starting a new semester on Friday so it might be a long while before I get time to write again. 
> 
> Feedback, criticism and comments welcome- the encouragements and tips posted on the last chapter were a huge help & motivator!


	5. Birth of a New Race

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected development for Trolls and Human alike.

** The discovery of fertile hybrids between humans and Cherubs was a breakthrough. The only woman crewmember of the Empress of Earth died of exposure and the ability to mate with the Unnamed Planet’s natives provided the ability to continue the human race. Over thousands of years the human/cherubs slowly took over the Unnamed planet with their human capabilities and cherubic talents. It is said that the hybrids had the intelligence of the Wiionic and the violent ambition of the Condesce, making them the obviously dominant species. But the clash of human and Cherub was not all good. The combination of human technology and violence of the natives was akin to giving an angry toddler access to primitive but deadly atomic bombs. The planet was strife with war and disease, and the populations of the hybrids skyrocketed to carrying capacity and then plummeted when the food ran out. The Unnamed Planet was not long for life, and only one thing could unite and save the hybrids. **

**Going home.**

\-----

Terezi had taken to observing Dave while the propaganda videos played.

He seemed unfazed by it all- unlike Karkat in front of her, who flushed red with anger every time he glanced back to see her smelling in Dave’s direction. But Dave himself was just as unperturbed as the first day she’d ranted unstoppably at him about the Phobos attacks.

In the weeks since then, they had been subject to human convoys of relief soldiers split open into the void of space, watched failed missions of brave Troll soldiers off to bomb Mars colonies and experienced the gruelling Alternian mines where lowbloods slaved to bring victory to the Empire.

Throughout the gore and statecraft, Dave gave off the particularly bland odour of nonchalance.

It was now commonplace for her to walk with Dave behind Karkat back to their shared Hiveblock and go over the day’s propaganda. She searched his every move and got not a hint of his true feelings. They were friends, but it was sort of like being friends with a slab of politically unobtrusive rock.

This directly contradicted the rage pouring off Karkat whenever she walked with Dave.

In the darkness of the hiveschool room she smelled it- almost felt it, now- again. Karkat turned around in his seat and glared at Terezi first and then Dave, then back to Terezi. She turned forward and gave Karkat a look with her useless red eyes. He blushed a furious red and turned his attention back to the propaganda onscreen.

Today was hacked footage from human training camp.

The information caused a reaction from Dave for the first time she’d ever seen. It was only a change in posture, a stiffening of spine. She heard the stretch of clothing and smelled the piquancy of anxiety. She imagined, if she could see it, it wouldn’t look like a thing had changed, but she could tell.

Onscreen human boys trained for a man’s war. A monotone voice condemned every action to be weak, impractical and idiotic. In her vigilant watch of the human, Terezi saw no reaction to the general training practices. A calmness had almost descended on Dave, as if he had feared for nothing.

A boy unremarkable to the other boringly diverse humans came into the frame. Despite his gruelling training, his blue eyes lit up at the sight of the camera and his blunt human teeth showed in a dorky grin. Terezi cocked her head at the screen.

“Why does that human look like you, KK?” Sollux called out.

“Fuck you, Sollux. That slime-sucking shitsponge looks nothing like me and you know it, though that may be the single asinine fact you have managed to bundle up in your skull plate, you dense tool,” Karkat threw back with venom.

“The cute human kind of looks like Karkitty,” Nepeta said.

Karkat turned around to stage whisper at Terezi; “Did Nep just inadvertently call me cute?”

“Even Nepeta’s not that brain dead, Karkat.” Aradia laughed at her boyfriend’s wit.

Terezi tuned out Karkat’s attack on Aradia’s character when she smelled a thick fear from the corner of the room where Dave sat. She could hear the tautness of muscles and smell the pure emotion coming from his spot. For a moment she wondered if her friend was experiencing some sort of mental lapse at the idea of Karkat being attractive to anyone, until she realized his focus was exclusively on the screen.

She hated to take her nose of Dave for one moment in fear of his emotion being a trick of wishing too much for any reaction, but she studied the screen noticing that the blue-eyed boy was still onscreen, now in the middle of a training exercise with fellow soldiers. She connected Dave’s shocked response to the boy’s appearance. When she turned her attention back to him, she smelled him turn towards her, and she looked down.

“…FOR CONDESCE’S SAKE, ARADIA, WE ARE THE FIRST PEOPLE TO INHABIT THIS ROCK SHELL. WHY ARE YOU SO OBSESSED WITH ARCHAEOLOGY WHEN WE DON’T FUCKING HAVE ANY?” Karkat spewed, the item of his berating calmly rolling her eyes. Sollux, on the other hand was furiously colouring yellow in the face.

Onscreen, the vicious, superior voice detailed how this specific platoon of Terran soldiers were vaporized by the spearhead of the Condesce’s army with barely any damage on the Troll fleet. No survivors.

Terezi had watched Dave for so long, but finally discovering an emotional feedback didn’t feel like a victory…it felt like something she was not meant to see.

\-----

The bell rang, and Terezi smelled Dave trying to escape as quickly as possible. Not a chance.

Of course she’d had qualms about approaching him about what she’d seen, but she’d effectively crushed them. They were friends, weren’t they?

She immediately got up, rushing after Dave, who had already exited. As her red sneakers pounded on the floor as she raced to catch up, she heard Karkat grumbling as he followed, no less quickly than she.

“Strider!” she called to no response, “Dave!”

“Slow the fuck down, Terezi!” She ignored Karkat behind her and continued running.

Dave stopped all at once. Once both trolls caught up, he began to walk again.

“What…” Karkat stopped to breathe, “…the fuck?”

“Exercise is the key to a balanced lifestyle, Karkat,” Dave commented.

“I know that, you twat, and I get mine by ripping anaemic trash like you apart!”

“Really? Because you told me you were too ‘low-blooded’ to-”

“Oh, shut up and walk.”

Karkat rushed to his usual place walking in front of them, shoulders tensed with the usual ire.

Dave and Terezi walked in silence behind him.

Terezi took a deep breath, only to be interrupted.

“So, those fucking Phobos moon bases, am I right?”

After a pause, she replied with her usual scorn, “Dave, that was weeks ago. Do you even understand how many hunks of rock are around here? So many, Dave. So many rocks.”

“How many rocks?”

“Oh, a fuck tonne. Most are military, but some have other purposes. All-highblood communities and such. The rumours speak of an entire meteor filled with the many quadrants of the Condesce,” she leaned in, “and an entire other just for her kismesises.”

“I’ve heard of a kismesis in passing, but what’s a quadrant?”

Karkat spun around faster than Terezi thought possible without breaking an ankle or two. He continued to walk backwards as his face went a complete cherry red.

“You’ve got it in for now…” she whispered.

“DAVE STRIDER, YOUR SKULL PLATE SHOULD BE CLEANSED WITH BLEACH FOR THAT IGNORANCE”

Dave smirked. “Enlighten me.”

“FUCK, STRIDER. HOW COULD I HOPE TO ENLIGHTEN SUCH A DARK, SICK MIND LIKE YOUR OWN OF THE COMPLEXITY AND DEPTH OF TROLL ROMANCE?”

“Romance, you say?”

“YES, ROMANCE. IF YOUR NARROW HUMAN MIND CAN EVEN FATHOM SUCH A CONCEPT-”

“We have romance-”

“DO NOT INTERRUPT. HUMAN ROMANCE IS WEAK- ONE GOD DAMN QUADRANT. FUCK THAT SHIT, STRIDER. WE HAVE FOUR, EACH MORE INVEIGLING THAN THE LAST.”

“Nice word.”

“Thank you. Now, lets start with the palest quadrant, moriallegience…”

Before Terezi could blink- which she barely did, what was the point?- they’d arrived at the boy’s home. Karkat hadn’t taken a breath to stop the entire time, and Dave had his usual smirk on his face- although it now looked more like he’d won. Terezi pouted.

Karkat usually went right into the respiteblock, but today seemed to have some business outside. Well, she’d have to be more discreet, she guessed.

She stood up to whisper in Dave’s ear, taking both the boys by surprise.

“Nice deflection, Strider. But a legislacerator always finds the truth,” she hissed.

“Sure,” he said, and she could tell he was rolling his eyes. But he went inside faster than usual. She grinned and moved to walk away.

“Terezi?”

She turned to see Karkat still outside.

“What?” she responded, probably with more sharpness than was necessary. Karkat glared at her, and she could smell his anger.

“Do you want to fill one of my quadrants?” he said in almost a growl, before realizing the unfortunate wording. “I mean, as your kismesis. Do you want to be my kismesis? Is what I was asking originally, as well as now...” there was a pause, “you could say something.”

“Um,” great. Lovely eloquence for the future legislacerator. ‘Um’.

She couldn’t deny some sort of attraction to Karkat, or that she hadn’t noticed his obvious attentions in return. It just seemed that…well, blackrom? She’d always seen him as more of a flushed romantic. Not that it was a blood prejudice. She knew Aradia had delved into kismessitude with success before, and her blood was as low as Karkat’s. Still, it didn’t sit well with her, however…

“Terezi?”

“Yes.”

“Did you think about-”

“Yes. My answer is, yes.”

“Okay.”

She walked away. She wasn’t sure what she was doing. But she didn’t hear Karkat’s signature door slam behind her, and knew he was watching her.

\---

Dave didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

John, of all people. Just like in life, such a fucking dork, making faces at government propaganda footage for humanity. And the Troll Empire comes along and hacks into Terran publicity and takes one- of thousands, millions of versions of footage- and takes the very stuff containing John fucking Egbert.

He sunk into the couch, body shaking almost imperceptibly. Despite the dreams, he’d forgotten the way John looked. His hair mussed around endearingly, and those piercing eyes that were always less blue in his memory than when he saw them in real life. And his laughter, his smile, brighter than a thousand suns. Dave never dreamed about John’s smile. At least, not his real smile.

_Dave could tell that John was trying, his lips curved up and a hint of buckteeth showing. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Those blue eyes like the sky in summer were terrified and filling with tears._

_“C’mon Dave,” he attempted a choked laugh, “Could you take off those stupid glasses for once?”_

_Dave shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. Sometimes, he’d try to, just to see if he could change the dream, but either his voice wouldn’t work or John couldn’t hear. It didn’t change anything and never would. Dave just stood there in silence, unable to show the boy he loved the tears in his red eyes._

“FUCK!” Karkat yelled, slamming the door.

Dave shot up, and Karkat stared at him suspiciously.

“What?” Karkat seethed.

“Nothing.”

“Yes, Strider, absolutely nothing. That’s what takes up residence in you cranial cavity isn’t it? Nought a thing.”

Karkat slammed things around the kitchen of their apartment; Dave took this as an allowance for him to sit down.

“Not that I’m any different, there’s no space in my head because its filled to the fucking pinnacle with only the most potent, unadulterated, virgin idiocy. My brand of complete ignorance is sold on the market for high as shit prices to the biggest bulge-sucking bidder. Incompetence like mine is rarer than a fucking diamond…” the self-berating went on for a while. Dave zoned out a little bit.

“I asked her to be my kismesis,” Karkat admitted to Dave, who had fortunately picked up that he was finally being addressed by his roommate.

“Oh,” Dave paused, “that’s the hate date thing right?”

The glare Karkat gave him could sear flesh.

“If you must be so crude, then yes, the incomprehensibility of kismessitude is indeed your ‘hate date thing’,” Karkat finger quoted passive aggressively.

“That’s got to be easy for you,” Dave said cavalierly.

After some sputtering, Karkat managed a: “What?”

“Well you’re a fairly adept insulter. That seems like a solid base for, whatever this is,” Dave offered, getting the oddest sense of dating-advice déjà vu.

“There’s more than insulting to blackrom,” Karkat said, but Dave detected a hint of …not exactly insecurity; a sort of hesitation. He was nervous, Dave realized.

“Well, as far as I see it,” Dave said, detachedly, “you start with those rad insults and just keep emotionally devastating her until all of a sudden you two are hatefucking around here so hard that I go deaf and everyone lives happily ever after like the most wonderfully explicit fairy tale ever told.”

Karkat responded with a long silence, which Dave enjoyed. It was a rare occurrence, after all.

“Do you really think that would work?” Karkat asked, tones of both doubt and confidence tainting his (for once) quiet voice.

Dave shrugged. They didn’t speak the remainder of the night.

\---

Dave hated himself later that night when he recalled the image of John’s smile and jerked off, supressing the sounds of pleasure and the memories of the past. He fell asleep like a fantasy of drowning in John’s blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaand were back! just in time for Valentine's Day. Hope you've had a good one :) 
> 
> to helpful readers: please, please, please let me know of any typos/grammatical errors! I have been flying through writing this and I get the feeling I have left hella mistakes in my wake
> 
> As usual, feedback, criticism and comments are all welcome and appreciated. The wheels have started to turn now, next chapter will feature some more exciting new stuff.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Return to Earth/Sour Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things go wrong. One thing goes right.

**Return to Earth**

**It took the near destruction of the Unnamed Planet to gather the resources to mend the Empress of Earth and make preparations. A hundred years of study on wormholes, propulsion and the works of the Wiionic provided the intelligence to set course for Earth. In the Hundred Year’s Peace, no rebellions slowed the work of the hybrids. They set aside the violence from their Cherubic roots in favour of a more human culture; after all, it was humans they would return to. The common goal of returning home united the hybrids under the rule of a Condesce that preferred her human roots. Under her watchful eye from youth until death, the Unnamed planet worked tirelessly to trace the Empress’ mistaken journey through the cosmos. The Humane Condesce died not long before her goal was reached, and the hybrids left the shell of the Unnamed planet.**

**They struck out through the galaxy with hopes and dreams of Earth.**

 

The door to the respiteblock slammed open, jolting Dave out of his self pity-fest. He’d been eating cotton candy on the couch since he’d gotten…not, home, exactly. Whatever the equivalent to home was on a planet where you were the only one of your species not in unspeakable torture cells. Home was the easiest way to think of it.

The door slammed shut before Karkat materialized, face red with his human-like blood. He didn’t seem to take in the image of Dave lying on the couch, shirt and sweats covered in sugar, the sound of another horrible romcom blaring from the troll television.

John had never looked as pissed off as Karkat did. How strange, to see a face you knew so well on a different person. Dave tried not to think about it.

Karkat simply seethed at him: “ _Get. Out.”_

Dave made a face. “Not gonna happen, bro. I’ve been here for hours trying to understand your Hollywood. How the fuck do you guys even have Hollywood? Troll-ywood? Whatever. Doesn’t all your money go towards fucking up our shit?”

Karkat stared. Dave shrugged and continued.

“I mean these are some good special effects. Do you have green screen? Holy shit is green skin a racist thing because of your blood? Green’s like…mid-blood right? So, no. You guys are institutionally racist to anyone who’s not blue or purple or whatever. I’m just going off the gaudy outfits I saw in prison here. What was my point? Oh yeah, green screen-”

“Dave, if you spout one more sentence full of xenophobic slander, I swear to the Empress herself I will-”

Dave sighed. “Oh, do your worst, man. I’m sick of all this _do this, Dave, OR ELSE!!!!_ You do realize I’m the literal enemy here? Punch me dude. In the fucking face. I’m sure they’ll give you a medal before sending you to the mines.”

Uncharacteristically, Karkat deflated. He walked over and sat on the couch Dave wasn’t occupying with his sugar-encrusted body.

He had to admit he was disappointed. All self-hated up and nothing to punish him. He really could’ve gone for getting beaten half to death.

“There will be no hatefucking,” Karkat said dolorously, looking ridiculously morose for someone who had just used the fake word ‘hatefucking’. Dave swallowed his urge to laugh.

“That’s rough dude,” he said, eyes not straying from the television, although he had no clue what the fuck was going on, “Better luck next time.”

“I just don’t know what in fuck’s name I did wrong?” Karkat continued. As someone who was going through his own emotional trauma, Dave was frustrated by Karkat’s fixation with his breakup.

 _At least he got a run at it,_ Dave thought, _at least he can still pine away to a living Terezi and not a space-bound corpse._

“You were probably too soft for her. Terezi seems like the kind of girl to go out with like, a hulking dude with tattoos and some sort of weird fetish.”

“That’s strangely specific, Strider. And who the fuck are you calling soft? You called me the king of insults-”

“Holy shit I _never_ said that”

“The desecrater of human emotion and now I’m soft? Fuck you, Strider. Fuck you and your bullshit oxymoron.”

Dave paused the movie.

“Okay, first of all, I didn’t even know you then. Dude I’ve watched like 90% of your movies now and can now honestly say that you are a soft ass bitch. Most of these things are about moral lenience and human romance and the other thing, with the threesomes. Like, one movie had kismesis. One. You were barking up the wrong tree. Or the right tree with the wrong dog. I don’t fucking know.”

Karkat stared again, and Dave wondered if he had overdone it with the psychoanalysis. What could he say, it ran in the family.

He started the movie again. Karkat got up and stormed to his room.

“Good fucking riddance!” Dave called after him through a mouth full of cotton candy. He really was starting to like the guy.

\---

**Sour Homecoming**

**Earth’s initial reaction to the reappearance of the lost starship Empress of Earth is joy and shock. Upon meeting the crew, the shock turns sour.**

**The hybrids saw Earth and humans as home and kin, but humanity was not prepared to have thousands of xenobiotic family members. The hybrids no longer looked human. They had grey skin from centuries under the Unnamed planet’s weak sun, and sharper bone structure, including orange horns. There were no blonde hybrids, and their blood was not red. Hybrid blood could be green, blue, orange or purple as a result of the mixture of human and Cherub blood. The Cherubic primitivity, though stifled by the Humane Condesce’s rule, was much more violent than human culture. It wasn’t helped that the Hybrids were stronger as a result of more powerful gravity on the Unnamed planet. Hybrids were also capable of a hatred so strong it was akin to love, called Kismesitude. This calignous pairing appalled the human race. Also, many hybrids found upon returning to Earth that they had forms of telekinesis and telepathy coming with the increase brain function that Earth’s more hospitable atmosphere offered them.**

**Upon their landing on Earth, the hybrids were separated from “normal” humans into camps. They were often cases of horrible experimentation and maltreatment. The human public saw the hybrids as something gone wrong rather than the miraculous survival of the Wiionic’s crew. Among humanity, the hybrids were given a name to alienate them further. They were not human; they were monsters.**

**The humans called them Trolls.**

\-------

“Today we are honoured to welcome students from the Beforus Institute to Alternia. They reside on a meteoroid closer to the sun where only highbloods are permitted to live,” the Dolorosa told the class, taking a pause before adding, “this will be the first time they see members of the lower class.”

And a human, unless they toured the prisons first. Karkat looked around, noting the extra chairs at the back. So that’s what they were for.

He hoped these Beforus assholes were so reclusive they hadn’t heard about his cousin. Hadn’t heard about _him_.

They walked in and the Alternian kids hated them. They were well-groomed, well-dressed and all had the same expression: like they smelled something rotten.

The Dolorosa launched into another dumb speech about servitude and honour, sounding less interested than her class.

The highbloods scanned the class like they owned it. A blue-blooded girl’s voice cut through the Dolorosa’s like broken glass through flesh.

“Fuck,” she swore more elegantly, somehow, “Why do they even teach these bastards? What’s the point of honour in the service sector?”

She laughed. It was a sign of her breeding that she called it a sector and not simply ‘the mines’.

The other’s laughed with her: an out-of-place greenblood, chuckling to stay in favour; a royal blue blood who’s muscles looked like cruelty; a seadweller chortling in pants that were probably more expensive than the building Karkat lived in. Even the indigo blood, who looked like he stood on stilts rather than his long legs, laughed in a booming baritone. Although, now that Karkat paid more attention…he looked out of sorts and his eyes were glazed. If he had to guess, Karkat would say that he didn’t know what was going on at all.

The girl in blue- obviously some sort of self-proclaimed ringleader- looked directly at Dave and drew out a decorative knife. Karkat’s hot blood ran cold for a moment, before he chided himself for giving a shit.

Of course, he couldn’t admit how shaken he was. Had this girl already taken lives? Was she on her way to becoming a general already?

“So,” she purred, “A human, huh? Look at your skin. It makes me sick.”

Karkat had, of course, had the same reaction. But he’d seemed less likely to flay it off for offending him.

“I can’t say yours didn’t take some getting used to as well, but hey, we’ve all got our crosses to bear,” Dave said.

For a second Karkat didn’t believe it. That was when Dave stood up and started walking to the front of the class.

Karkat glared at him, asking with his eyes, _do you have a fucking death wish?_ Dave’s smile responded, _yeah, I do_.

He sauntered to stop in front of the blue girl, holding out his hand to where she held out a knife.

“I’m Dave Strider,” he said, fairly amiably.

“I know who you are,” the girl sneered, although her eyes betrayed shock and confusion. Karkat realized she’d never been challenged like this before, and felt a strange thrill. Something like pride.

“Yeah, okay, but I haven’t had the pleasure of that knowledge on your part.”

“I,” she paused for a dramatic effect, which Sollux ruined with a snort, “am Vriska Serket, relation to Marquise Mindfang, general of the Gamblignant fleet stationed near Mars.”

Dave looked about as impressed as could be expected of a human; not at all.

“Well, hope she makes it out of that one. I hear Mars is pretty nice, you know, if you’re my species.”

Vriska flipped the dagger before shoving it under Dave’s chin. Before the movement was over, Karkat feared she’d already stabbed him. He clenched his fists, knuckles pale under thin gray skin pulled taunt.

 _Who the fuck taught him to disturb shit like this?_ He wondered, _Why can’t he just back the fuck down for once?_

And Dave put his hands up, like he could hear what Karkat was thinking.

Vriska whispered something in his ear before dropping the knife from the boy’s neck and spitting on his face. Then she and her cronies made their way to their seats.

Dave waited for them all before wiping the spit off and sitting back down. As Karkat watched him go to his chair, he saw Terezi staring at him out of sightless eyes. Her face burned him like a brand; her expression of awe cut him like Vriska’s knife.

\-----

The bell rang after a strange day of classes. Terezi had noticed confusion among her classmates, but of course no one had said a word after Vriska the bitch had almost gutted Dave at the front of the class like a propaganda video come to life.

As Nepeta walked past, Terezi grabbed the sleeve of her long, olive-scented coat.

“Nep,” she hissed, “What was wrong with the class?”

“You didn’t see? Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine, Nep, don’t worry about it. What happened?”

“It was the video’s, Terezi,” Nepeta’s earnest, terrified voice smelled like lemon, “They were all the same. Every one of them. There’s never been a mistake like that-”

Nepeta suddenly stopped, and Terezi caught a whiff of blueberry before Vriska’s combat boots stomped over.

“What are you doing here?” the girl asked with scorn.

Terezi frowned. “I don’t think we’ve met, actually.”

“We haven’t, obviously,” Vriska’s eye roll was almost audible, “I mean, with your standing. What are you doing surrounded by this scum? Even Kanaya managed a place at Beforus and she’s a fucking greenblood.”

Terezi didn’t have time for highblood racism. So she was teal, almost blue? So what? Legislaceration didn’t care where she took basic school. She could be wherever she wanted. Blind trolls weren’t common, so she’d learned how to live in the city. Doing everything herself. She’d gotten here without any highblood ‘help’ and she didn’t need to start taking it now.

“Leave me alone, Vriska,” Terezi told her.

“You can’t speak to me like that!” The other girl sounded close to stomping her feet with frustration.

 _What a child,_ Terezi thought. “On the contrary,” she said, “I just did.”

 

Karkat and Dave were long gone when she’d extricated herself from Vriska. She jogged in their direction, knowing she’d be able to keep up.

Perhaps she should leave Dave alone, just for Karkat’s sake. Their ‘date’ had truly failed spectacularly.

But what was she supposed to do? She didn’t even know if she liked Karkat that way, and suddenly he was screaming at her like a champion. She’d left, calmly, after slapping him across the face. It was amazing how much he’d studied troll romance with what an idiot he was in practice.

Maybe if they’d gone on a redrom date she’d be chasing after him right now.

She caught up with them just before they got in. Karkat slammed the door shut, face red with embarrassment. She jogged to a stop in front of Dave.

“Sorry your date flopped,” he said, eyes invisible behind his shades. His hair blew in a soft, Dave-scented wind and she was struck by how foreign yet beautiful he was.

She grinned. “I’m really not.”

She put a hand behind his neck, pulled him down and kissed his red, red lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the push. Against all odds, I'm gonna fucking finish this.


	7. Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One bad thing after another.

**Betrayal**

**The trolls waited for tolerance to grow, for the humans to accept them. That time never got to come.**

**A camp in the middle of the Pacific Ocean disappeared from the international board of troll camps. Half-hearted investigations were made after a protest in a couple of surrounding camps, and few findings were reported. A lone troll named Latula Pyrope, under the code name Redglare went undercover to find what happened to the vanished camp. She alone found out the truth of what happened, and could not pass on the information before she was taken into human custody. She did, however, pass on a simple message to a proponent of hers, the Summoner. Rufioh Nitram was the most powerful animal telepathist in all of trollkind. The urgency of the message demanded that all the camps in the world be notified, and Rufioh Summoned animals to send the message.**

**Cats, dogs, deer, tigers any animal nearest to a troll camp broke in and wrote one word in a prominent place, in letters visible even to the oldest troll.**

**E S C A P E**

 

\-----

 

Dave didn’t seem too intent on kissing back, Terezi thought.

She pulled back with difficulty, scrutinizing him with her nose (and the residue on her tongue). He was impassive.

She had the strangest urge to rip off his sunglasses and smash them. How she hated those shades.

Had she really been misled? She asked herself. He’d talked to her most days: flirting, chatting, and antagonizing Karkat. She thought she’d smelled interest. Maybe that was her own excitement getting in the way.

No, no, he liked her. She was sure of it.

What she wasn’t sure of, was why he was being such a flake now.

“Well, that was nice,” he told her, before leaning down and kissing her chastely on the lips.

She was so shocked she didn’t respond. _Who the fuck is this guy?_

“I should tell you,” he said, taking her hand gently from the back of his neck. He held it like a dying bird.

“Tell me what?” she sounded angry to herself, not at all like she’d just been kissed.

“I’m sort of, well, married.”

This conflicted with everything she’d ever known about Dave Strider and human culture in general. He had to be joking.

“Really? Married to whom, may I ask?”

Dave smiled sadly before opening his door.

Before he closed it, he whispered, “To death”

He’d tasted like humanity; like blood, and it turned sour in her mouth when she turned and walked away.

\---

Dave was feeling dramatic and destructive, which was perhaps why the first words out of his mouth after ‘death’ were,

“I just kissed Terezi.”

Karkat just looked at him.

“Well, she kissed me. I kissed her back, sort of. She’s probably mad. I’d never kissed anyone before, actually. I’m surprised I wasn’t worse, to be honest.”

Karkat cocked his head.

“And I’m supposed to feel…betrayed? Angry?” Karkat sighed, “You are the wettest blanket in the history of our combined races. No blanket has ever been wetter. If it were sunk fathoms deep in the salt seas of Alternia, to the great depths at which brains cease to function and splatter into grey matter under the pressure, still, even then, no blanket would be wetter than you are being, right fucking now.”

“I almost thought you were going to get through that metaphor without swearing, dude.”

“Why can’t you just be happy? A pretty troll girl just kissed you. I already knew she would never love me, obviously. I’m a failure at everything. I would fucking kill a hoofbeast with my bare fucking hands to have her but she doesn’t want me. She wants you, and the best you can do is kiss her, turn around and tell me about how shitty it was.”

Dave was strangely moved.

“Fuck you, Strider. Fuck you and your self-pity. You are going to die, and you are going to die sad. And I fucking hope that makes you happy.”

Karkat walked out.

 

He still came back to make food. Dave mused that he was probably lucky to have such a concerned roommate, who was a decent enough human (troll) being as not to let him starve.

They ate whatever it was they were eating on the couch- Dave had never gotten the hang of Alternian food. Cotton candy was his modus operandi.

Karkat didn’t even seem mad, which was really, really weird. He was always mad. He sat there like a mountain, unmoved by the shit movie they were watching and the contempt he should have had for Dave.

In its place was a melancholy acceptance.

It made Dave sad. He wanted to reach out to this boy who looked so much like John and tell him everything was going to be all right, which was a straight up lie, all things considered. He wanted to pat him on the back, put an arm around him, hold his hand, just hold him.

Instead, Dave looked at the movie. Sometimes, he wished he were as unfeeling as he hoped to look behind his shades. But he wasn’t.

And he was probably sort of falling in love with his asshole roommate.

\-------

The Beforus trolls were still in their classroom. The Dolorosa stood tall at the front of the class.

Karkat could hear whispers from the back. The greenblood girl, Kanaya, whispered in terror, “Why can’t we go home?”

The Dolorosa cleared her throat before issuing another imperial speech. This time, everyone listened raptly.

“Last night, there was a force of Martian vessels that breached a small weakness in the fleet’s offensive. Before being systematically destroyed, the crafts reached the rock form Beforus-”

Gasps of outrage erupted from the back of the classroom.

“-which was rent to rubble. The surviving inhabitants of Beforus will be assigned to Alternian hives for the time being.”

Conversation exploded in the small classroom, but Karkat was silent. He was well versed in the lies of the Empire. This decree of a ‘small attack force breaking through’ could be true, or the Terran fleet could have pushed back all the way to the outer asteroids.

It was a chilling thought Karkat kept to himself.

 

The next day and the day after that they were shown the same footage. Karkat noticed more blue bloods mixing in the streets. He forgot his misery in the fear that blanketed the city. No one knew what was really going on, but there was no denying that the government had its hands full of something. Why else was no one regulating the propaganda? Why else were people pouring into the city, yet no one seemed able to get out?

 

Every day, the back of the classroom got more vicious. With the same videos playing all the time, there was a fearful sort of boredom in the room. The blue bloods combated this by making a circle of chairs and talking about politics and possibilities. None of which dared to speak the truth: the government was lying, or at least withholding the truth.

 

Brawls broke out in overcrowded streets. Blood meant nothing in a fight for a spot on the ground. If anything, the low bloods were stronger. They’d spent more time scrounging for the worst. They knew how to hold on once they got something. Violence put the confusion into a sick clarity.

And the blue blood council ate it up, from the repeated carnage on the screens to the new blood on the streets each morning.

\-----

Terezi was walking out of the room when hands with blue fingernails pressed her against a wall.

She’d been trying to catch up with Dave. She felt like that’s what she’d been trying to do for as long as the videos had been cycling the same violent noise at her. Repeating the same missed walks and knocking on doors that wouldn’t open. They hadn’t spoken since the kiss. She smelled guilt on him some days, which didn’t make any sense at all.

She was more annoyed than anything. Vriska had been trying to get her to join the little blue blood cult she had going on. Terezi wasn’t interested in politics. Of course she was scared; she wasn’t stupid. But she knew that nothing the blue bloods had to say would make her feel better, or even be any semblance of the truth.

Now Vriska glared at her, the crony Equius standing beside her- it was him Terezi had to thank for the warm welcome.

“You traitor,” Vriska hissed before slapping her across the face.

Terezi inhaled sharply at the pain. None of her senses had warned her the hit was coming; she felt vulnerable.

“You bitch, refuting your blood and pining after that…that…human!” Vriska sounded like she was going to cry or scream; Terezi wasn’t sure which. After a shaky breath, Vriska continued. “Well you must be an idiot. Who would pass up their rightful place at the side of the highest of bloods? Only a fool. Fools are useless, Terezi. Fools like you should die.”

Terezi stayed silent; she didn’t have anything to say.

“But I don’t quite think you’re stupid,” Vriska said in a low voice, stepping closer, “Are you, Terezi? You’re just distracted. You looked into his eyes, didn’t you? You know you must never look into the eyes of a human. They will blind you worse than you already are. Their magic will sap you of your will, your power, your violence, everything that makes you a troll.”

Terezi breathed out the stench of blueberry. She had never seen Dave’s eyes. He’d never let her in, not once. That made her more sad than any of Vriska’s abuse.

“You’ll come around, Terezi, you’ll see. You’ll come to where you belong, with me,” Vriska touched her face, and Terezi had to quell her urge to bite the girl’s hand. She pushed the girl’s hand away.

“I don’t belong with you, Vriska,” she spat, “You don’t fucking own me.”

“That sounds like a distraction talking. But don’t worry, you know what we do to distractions, don’t you?”

Terezi could hear her heart pound.

“We get rid of them.”

_Dave_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters? in one night? am i katniss everdeen or alicia keys cause dang im on fiyaaaaahhhh


	8. Rebellion and War

 

**The trolls did more than Redglare and the Summoner asked, they did not simply escape. The trolls fought tooth and nail.**

**Such violence occurred that human government made quick action in exiling all of trollkind to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Famous last words of the human ruler were, “From space they came to us. To space let them return.” And so trolls didn’t have to escape, humanity did it for them. They were provided minimalist colonies on the dwarf planet in the belt, a rock named Ceres after the roman goddess of agriculture. Ironic, as the plan was to let trollkind starve to death on the barren rock. But the trolls rebelled in the best way possible; they survived against all odds. They elected a new Condesce, who called herself the Troll Condesce, embracing the human’s hatred and topping it with more of her own. The trolls flourished and, as in the Hundred Year’s Peace in which the hybrids built for home, the trolls experienced an age of industrialism. Only this time, they weren’t returning home to live. They were returning home to kill and die.**

**The first attacks on Mars wiped out a whole colony, and the Troll Condesce screamed for human blood to pay for the death of the residents of the Pacific troll camp. Humanity was unprepared after years of peace, but took up the quarrel soon enough. There is no name for the War between humanity and their half-siblings, because no war has been so cruel. Humans swore never again to take up arms against other men, and the only reason they fought trollkind was because they truly believed that trolls were not human. Like the name humanity gave them, trolls embraced that as well.**

 

\-------

Terezi raced by, almost pushing Karkat to the ground. He might have yelled out some abuse if he hadn’t seen the terror on her face.

Instead of walking away, he ran after her, trying not to hear his cousin’s pleas for death echoing in his mind.

\---

 _I thought I wanted to die_ , Dave thought _, but that was before I knew I could still feel_.

\-------

Karkat heard Terezi wailing even before he got into the alley. He didn’t know what she could perceive of the situation. Maybe nothing more than the thick scent of blood in the air.It was the indigo troll, strangely enough. Gamzee. Karkat had thought maybe he was some sort of gentle giant.He wasn’t. The evidence to the contrary was disgusting.

Dave was still standing, despite a broken nose. His sunglasses were broken in one eye; cuts littered his face from the glass.A piece of metal was stuck into his side, stained with blood. They shared red blood, but the substance coming out of Dave was black.

He fell to the ground, and Gamzee drew back a leg and kicked him. Dave’s wail was nothing human or troll. Maybe it was the sound that propelled him forward. Maybe it was Terezi still crying, muttering, “I should have come earlier.”

Whatever it was- love, lunacy- Karkat walked towards Gamzee and stood between him and Dave.

“You will not lay another motherfucking hand on him.”

And by some miracle, by some spell his words cast like his cousin’s before him, it was true.

\---

Swimming was so great.

Dave really missed swimming. Of course, he had to wear a sun shirt, and even then he’d probably get some mad sunburns on the back of his neck. But it was always worth it to see John jumping around like an idiot. Sometimes Rose was there too, floating around on a pool noodle, sipping from her juice box and watching Dave with a knowing look.

“What do you want, Rose?”

“Simply for you to admit what a truly exceptionally homosexual young man you are, Dave.”

Dave laughed; Rose was always saying shit like that. She loved playing hide and seek with phalluses in Dave’s dreams.

He’d sworn they were just kids when this had begun, but suddenly they were a lot older. John had a defined jawline with a millimeter of stubble. Rose had breasts. John had a treasure trail leading down to a delightful outline in his wet shorts.

Dave laughed again.

“You’re crazy, Rose. You want to search for dicks in my dreams?”

“There already are dicks in your dreams, Dave. You were just looking at one.”

She smiled, and her grin was as bright as the sun.

\-----

Terezi didn’t know anything about human biology.

She didn’t know much about troll biology either. She liked law. And she knew enough about law to know that no justice system on the planet would help them now.

She raced beside Karkat, trying to think of anything she could about blood that wasn’t fixated on its colour.

Karkat held Dave, and Terezi could smell the bleach spike of his pale face. As her shaking hands used the key Karkat had handed her to open their door, she wondered if he was already dead.

She didn’t know anything about human death rites, either.

\---

Dave was blind, so he thought of Terezi. He wondered if Rose would like Terezi. Maybe. He hadn’t seen Rose in so long. He’d never gotten to know what type of girls she liked.

Not seeing Rose made him think of seeing Roxy.

On Earth: Roxy dropping Rose off to hang out with Dave and John while their respective guardians made plans in the next room.

One day, they’d tried to listen in, but it was a bunch of boring shit about the War. Dave was the only one with a visual through the keyhole. He saw Roxy’s pianist hands dancing across keys, pulling up schematics and diagrams and videos that meant nothing to him. He saw Jake and Dirk’s easy conversation. The way Dirk took his hand just like this, the way their movements were like a dance.

And then John started complaining that Jake was _always_ talking about the War and Strategy and Armaments and he was sick of it. Rose always wanted to keep listening, to hear what Roxy had to say. She was obsessed. But Dave hated it when John was upset, so they hadn’t done that again.

And then, on Alternia: Roxy on the screen, Dave looking through the crack in the door to Dirk’s office. The way Roxy’s expression mirrored the hurt on Dirk’s face for Dave to see.

“Ask him.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Ask him about Jane.”

“If what you’re saying is true…”

“Dirk, please.”

“I don’t think I can stand it.”

Dave hated her for that. For her wanting Dirk to know the truth. What was the point of the truth if it hurt?

What was the point?

\-------

“Karkat,” Terezi whispered.

He had done all he could.

He had been the one to pull out the metal spike, gasping and reacting more than Dave himself did. Then, while he’d thrown up, Terezi had gathered a pillow and bound the wound. _What are we doing?_ He’d asked himself as he watched her. _What is going on?_

They were children playing at being doctors and nurses. Terezi had antiseptic on a cloth, shaking, terrified to let it touch Dave’s skin because she had no idea what troll antiseptic could do to him. It was Karkat who gently took it at touched it to Dave’s fingertip and then his own. Comparing the results. Deeming it safe.

They were xenobiologists in a basement laboratory without a clue what they were doing.

It was Terezi who went to school the next day and stole everything she could fit in her bag that had information on medicine. Then they’d taken turns reading and checking Dave.

“Karkat,” Terezi whispered in the broken voice he now suspected would never be whole again.

“I’m awake.” He hadn’t slept since it happened.

“I just wondered…” her voice dwindled to obscurity.

“What?” his harshness was dead. _Are you happy, Kankri? My anger is gone. And all it took was another public beating._

“Why are you doing this?”

Karkat looked at the boy barely clinging to life on their kitchen table. He thought of the weeks they’d spent together. He didn’t know what was going on.

“Maybe I’m trying to save my cousin”

Terezi nodded at him. They were both sitting on the couch. Despite the events of the last two days, she was still so beautiful.

“But I think I’m trying to save him. To save Dave, heh.” She chuckled back.

“I think he was in love with you,” Terezi told him.

The first thought he had was to scold her for using the past tense. And then he was just confused.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asked her. She nodded.

Terezi fell asleep on his shoulder, but he still couldn’t sleep.

\---

John was leaving again.

In Dave's dreams, John was always leaving. Maybe this time, because he was so close to death, he could change it.

He reached up- he was surprised he could move his hands, that was new- and took off his glasses.

“John,” he told the boy with the bright blue eyes, filled with tears, leaving, “Don’t go. You’ll die.”

“It’s my duty.”

“That’s stupid.”

Blue eyes met red. The words were the same same same but their eyes were together and that was something.

“I love you.”

The words tumbled out so fast Dave wasn’t sure they were real until John sobbed.

“I love you too.”

Dave was spared having to explain that _no, not like brothers, John, that’s incest, I mean in a gay way_ by John’s lips on his.

He couldn’t move and John whispered, “Why aren’t you kissing me?”

Because you’re dead you’re dead you’re dead and then John was Karkat and Karkat whispered on his lips

“I’m not dead”

and then Dave could move again and everything was perfect for a minute, their lips moving together like one, like the most perfect kiss in the history of kisses that thought they were perfect but actually weren’t, because _wow_ nothing was better than this. Somehow Terezi was there too and he didn’t feel guilty anymore. He took her hand. And just when everything was getting interesting, it all fell to shit.

John who became Karkat became Jake and Dave threw himself away before looking around for a sword or a knife or a brick or anything he could use to _kill him_.

“Terezi, please, help me” but she was gone too.

It was only Jake onscreen and Dirk in front of the computer and Dave looking through the crack in the door.

“Roxy told me…I’m not saying I believe her, I’m not saying I listened but she told me…”

Dave couldn’t see Dirk’s face. He couldn’t see the expression that accompanied the sob that sounded like a chain wrenched it out of him. He’d never heard a noise that felt so forlorn; he’d never felt so helpless.

The only thing he could see was Jake’s impassive face, and then Jane stepping into the frame.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, Jake, I didn’t know you were on a business call. You must be Dirk Strider, this can’t be a good time but I just want to thank you for your bravery,” she lay her hand on Jake’s shoulder, “Remember there’s a meeting with the Generals later tonight. The strategy-”

“I _know_ , Jane.”

She left, but Dave could just see the image of her hand on Jake’s shoulder. The ring on her finger gleaming.

“I don’t know what to say,” Jake said.

There was a silence. Dave wanted to run in and smash the screen.

“Tell me this isn’t happening,” Dirk said.

“I-”

“Tell me this isn’t happening. Oh god, this can’t be happening. Tell me I didn’t launch myself into enemy territory at your suggestion for you to cheat on me.”

“I’m sorry-”

“You’re _sorry?_ Jake you got fucking married! You fucking married her! That’s not a blip in the system, that’s not a lonely night at the bar, that’s intention, that’s you consciously making the decision to-”

“Oh what could I have done? Broken up with you?”

“ _Yes_. God, yes, Jake, that’s what you do when a relationship is over. You man up and you end it.”

“You said yourself, you’re out there because of me-”

“Well then I could come back couldn’t I? Roxy could do my job here, couldn’t she?”

“It’s a permanent position.”

“What?”

“The job was only allowed to exist if it was a permanent position on Alternia. The trolls demanded it. You can’t come back.”

“Jake?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Jake, my brother is here. You let me bring my brother here. You’ve killed us. You’ve sent us here to die.”

“Dirk, you are invaluable to the cause. You know that. Don’t screw it up with emotions.”

“And what is my value, huh?”

Dave felt the shockwaves like it was yesterday. Fear and betrayal and hurt and anger.

“Jake, what is my value to the cause?”

“Don’t do this.”

“What am I doing here that’s so important, Jake?”

“I wont let you-”

“I’m sending Troll intelligence to Earth.”

Jake’s shock was almost worth it. Almost.

“I’m hacking into Alternian files and I’m sending the intelligence to Earth. Can you hear that, Empress? I’M SENDING YOUR FUCKING PLANETARY SECRETS TO EARTH!”

Jake couldn’t look away. Dave couldn’t look away.

“I’M SENDING SCHEMATICS AND DIAGRAMS AND VIDEO FOOTAGE TO EARTH! Specifically? To this man, this absolute asshole who sent my ass here to DIE!”

It hadn’t taken long at all for the Empress to send out troops. Dirk Strider was still screaming when the soldiers pushed past Dave to restrain him.

For some reason, Jake was still on the screen, staring, pale as death.

“You killed me,” Dirk hissed at him as the soldiers bound his arms, “This shit’s all on you, English.”

Jake looked at him in awe, like he was a fallen angel or a wrecked ship burning up in the atmosphere.

“I know, Dirk.”

 

And Dave woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter, please comment if you notice any glaring grammar mistakes. Also, the character tags have been updated to be correct (I hope).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	9. The Empire

**After the human’s rejection of the trolls, the Troll Condesce, Meenah Peixes, modelled herself as the original Condesce born again. She strengthened the broken hybrids under a new name and a new race: the trolls.**

**Condesce Peixes created as society that renounced their human background and embraced the primitivity that the Human Condesce had worked to suppress. As trolls developed their own culture, social constructs like celebration of lack of morals (or, humanity), romantic quadrants and the hemospectrum.**

**Meenah rejected her human DNA, claiming her blood to be untainted Cherubic. This is unconfirmed, as no one has tested original Cherubs (before their adaptation to the troll race) to know the colour of their blood. Red, orange and yellow blood was scorned for its closeness to human crimson, while green, blue and purple blood was highly regarded. Many publicized spies, rebels and sympathizers were ‘lowblood’ or portrayed as such in a cultural propaganda to emphasize the hemospectrum.**

**The renouncement of human morals is not a neurological truth for trolls. Their Cherub ancestors were more violent, as well as capable of the calignous brand of romance humans object so strongly to. But the different morals of trolls has nothing to do with how red, blue or purple a trolls blood is- or, as the hemospectrum truly means, “more human”. The reddest blooded troll could be the cruellest, and the most purple sweet as a lamb.**

**Quadrants allowed for trolls to further distance themselves from human, in their experience of darker feelings. Ashen, Calignous, Pale and Flushed quadrants are concepts humanity refuses to understand, and thus the trolls call them undeveloped. Also, Flushed relationships are viewed as weak, because they are the only one humans understand.**

**This is the Empire Meenah Peixes created, built on hatred for humans. A culture of suppression and odium.**

\-------

Karkat still wasn’t asleep, but it took him an extra second to notice Dave trying to sit up.

His first reaction was to yell at him to lie back, but he went with his second, which was to get up and rush to his side. He felt bad for Terezi, who’d been using his shoulder for a pillow and promptly fell over. But she woke with a start and was only a step behind him.

“Lie back, asshole!” she shrieked at him before pushing him gently back down.

“Hi, Terezi,” Dave’s eyes met Karkat’s, “Vantas”

“Strider”

“How are things?”

“You’re a messier fucking roommate than you let on,” he responded, indicating the bloodstains in the room.

Dave barked a laugh before gasping a breath in pain.

“Shit,” he whispered, “What happened?”

Karkat let Terezi tell him the events of the past couple days. He stood back, a bit shocked. He realized numbly that he hadn’t believed that Dave would actually wake up. He never thought he’d get to use that half-assed joke.

Terezi had taken Dave’s hand, all awkwardness forgotten. Karkat only wished he had her bravery.

“I didn’t think you’d wake up,” she told him, her other hand rising to card through his white hair.

She echoed Karkat’s silent thoughts. She acted on his barred impulses. He felt like he was going to disappear until Dave’s eyes fixed on his once more. With a struggle, the human boy reached out to him with his free hand.

Karkat took it in one, and looked at Terezi, the girl he loved and took her free hand, connecting the three of them.

\-----

Terezi couldn’t help but think of what Vriska had said to her about humans’ eyes. About what everyone had said about humans. She could see the whites of his eyes now, and the red of his irises. Karkat’s irises would look the same in a few years.

For some reason, looking down at this alien boy she loved, Terezi realized they were all morons. Their race was half human. That’s what trolls _were_.

Karkat took her hand then, and it felt right. He wasn’t the asshole following her around like a puppy anymore. He had some semblance of purpose.

When she lay her head on his shoulder last night she wondered if a person could love two people at once. She looked at Karkat, hand in hand with herself and Dave, and knew it was true. And it was all right.

\---

They’d been sitting together, speaking and then in comfortable silence, for a long while until Terezi started to nod off. Karkat had led her to one of their rooms. For a moment Dave wondered if he was going to come back. He didn’t know how to work with any of this. Should he be jealous if they kissed…without him? Or if they slept together?

Yeah, he was jealous.

But Karkat came back to him almost immediately. He stood in the half-darkness of their shared apartment just looking at the other boy. Dave looked back, at first a challenge, then just looking. Admiring, he guessed. Maybe Karkat wasn’t conventionally beautiful, but here he looked like a wraith or a shadow. He was maybe a little terrifying, Dave thought, but undeniably bewitching.

“Do you want something to eat?”

Shocked out of his reverie, his first reaction was to make a sarcastic remark about being stabbed in the stomach. He relented: that would probably be considered bad taste.

“Sure.”

Karkat walked to the fridge, leaning slightly to reach in and grab something. The muscles in his back stretched his shirt.

Dave’s mouth went momentarily dry. _Not now, boner,_ he joked to himself. He didn’t think he had enough blood in his system to get it up. He actually didn’t know. Maybe he should have studied up on some basic human biology before coming to a planet where no one could relate. He wondered how Terezi and Karkat had operated on him, anyways. Seeing Karkat’s dead eyes turn back to him, he didn’t want to ask.

Karkat held out a drink of something. He sipped it.

“You had,” Karkat paused, looking for the words, “some nightmares, I think. After the initial shock. While we were waiting to see if you’d…”

 _If you woke up_. Dave felt a pang go through him when he saw that Karkat couldn’t even say the words.

“Yeah,” he replied, filling the silence, “I was dreaming about Earth.”  _And my brother_.

Karkat nodded. “Do you ever miss it there?”

The question shocked Dave. He was about to deny it when he remembered swimming. “Yes. I mean the cities are basically the same. I lived in Houston, which probably doesn’t mean anything to you. Basically it’s a giant city, and it gets really hot sometimes. So there’s this human thing we do called swimming. Ever heard of it?”

Karkat’s face was blank. “Swimming?” He tried out the word, “nope.”

“Okay, so, basically you get a big pit and you fill it up with water and then just sort of…float in it? Or jump into it and splash people. You’re looking at me like I’m insane but I swear you’d like it. Terezi, holy crap, Terezi would _live_ for swimming. I would live in fear of her with a water pistol.”

The corner of Karkat’s mouth quirked up. “We do know that Earth is mostly water. Why do you have to dig a pit?”

“Well, I mean, Houston isn’t near the ocean. So you had to have pools, which are the pits. When the sun beats down in summer, it used to be our favourite thing to go swimming.”

“Our?”

“Yeah. I had friends on Earth, mostly because my bro was so high-ranking, I only got to hang out with military leader’s kids. Rose and…John.”

“He’s the one who looks like me?”

“Yeah. Yeah he’s-”

“Dead now.”

A cloying quiet descended on them. Dave’s mind was a mess of wet swim trunks and tearful goodbyes. Karkat’s next words cut through him like a knife.

“I’m not him, you know.”

“What?”

Karkat looked at him with eyes that might have been angry if they weren’t so hurt. “I don’t know why you like me. But I’m not…I’m never going to be your human boyfriend. I can’t live up to those expectations.”

Dave remembered the way John had turned into Karkat in his dream.

“Of course you’re not him,” Dave said, “You look weirdly like him but you’re…” Angrier? Sadder? “realer. He’s just a memory. You’re real.”

Karkat looked surprised but also accepting. Maybe even relieved.

“And anyways,” Dave added, “He was never my boyfriend. He liked girls.”

Karkat raised a wry eyebrow. “Do you think he’d like Terezi?”

That made Dave laugh so hard it hurt. Karkat’s concern at that made him smile. If only he could reach up, sit up and reach the other boy’s mouth with his own.

Well, nothing ventured…

He tried to sit up. Karkat’s arms immediately shot out, steadying him, but not pushing him back down. They were close. Dave could feel the warmth of the other boy’s breath on his face.

Karkat’s expression was curious but hesitant, so it was Dave who crossed those endless inches. Their lips met in a crush of red. Dave suppressed a giggle when their noses brushed. Karkat’s mouth was closed, almost trembling. Worried, Dave drew away and had to laugh at the other boy’s struck expression.

“Oh fuck, why are you laughing? Was it that bad?” Karkat asked, insecurity bleeding in his voice.

“No, no reason, nothing. You just looked so shocked.”

“Well no one’s done that before.”

“It was nice. More than nice. It was fucking amazing.”

Dave made himself look up at Karkat, through his eyelashes, trying to look coy or something.

“It was a little short though. Care to try again?”

It was Karkat’s turn to laugh at him, before he closed the distance between them once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the grammar. Grammar policing is always welcome. Thanks for reading!


	10. Rebellion for Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rebellions, victories and loss.

**Kankri Vantas was a sweet-tempered lowblood with a higher-than-average intelligence. He was allowed to join the statistical division of the Empress’ army, although one of his blood would usually end up in the slave hives of Alternia. Kankri Vantas proved to be too weak to survive the emotionally gruelling work involved in statistics; calculating death tolls and battle strategies against human colonization convoys. Kankri was not up for dealing death to the enemy, and started offering more defensive strategies. He was treated with hemocism and blamed that for his sudden abscond from the army. His behaviour- monitored, of course, as is standard for a derelict army member- became erratic. He gathered friends, including Meulin Leijon and Porrim Maryam, to his home where they did not leave. His hive became a meeting place for pacifists, his sign a symbol worn by objectors to the War. He spoke in the streets, rallying trolls to end the War and negotiate a peace with Earth. The Empress ordered his arrest on grounds of treason, and claimed Kankri had a link to the humans and was spreading their propaganda. This was never proven, but did succeed in nullifying his effect. He was tortured and killed in public; it was hoped his death would inspire bloodlust. However, Kankri Vantas screamed through his gag. His pain was so emphatically felt that he was killed out of mercy before the full torture could be finished. No one was convicted for sabotaging the demonstration of his death, however, he is succeeded by a relative, Karkat Vantas.**

\-----

Moving Dave around the apartment was less of a trial than Terezi had expected. Karkat was far too gentle. Maybe his height and strength could be helpful, but his unwillingness to touch Dave, to brave the smallest possibility of hurting him, made him useless.

“I know you loathe to do anything but grope him, but honestly Karkat?” She snapped playfully.

Karkat looked so affronted she had to laugh. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his frown, an action that was becoming more and more natural.

“Go sit on the couch,” she ordered before turning back to Dave, who was grinning at her.

“Does this mean no groping, then?” he pouted.

“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes at the both of them, Karkat laughing from the couch.

But then it was easy: to help Dave up, to hold him steady as they walked, carefully, like children. The wound stayed closed. Dave barely winced.

“Alright, I’m going to let you go now.”

He stood in the middle of the room. He raised his arms slowly, the mess of skin stretching grossly, but holding, even when Dave reached up as high as he could. He suddenly went pale, and Terezi rushed to his side.

“Are you hurt?” Karkat barked, a moment behind her.

“Just tired,” Dave gasped.

Terezi led him back to the table. She helped him sit while Karkat fetched water.

“I’m proud of you.”

Dave exhaled a laugh. “I barely made it across the room without fainting.”

She shrugged. “I’m still proud.”

She kissed him deeply, hand sliding up his leg.

“I see you’re using the rewards system,” Karkat remarked.

“You’re just jealous,” she muttered against Dave’s lips before drawing away.

“And she never did say there would be no groping involved,” Dave commented, toasting with his water.

Karkat had to smile at them then.

\-------

Watching from the couch, Karkat saw Dave walk across the room, then stretch with Terezi, then hug her when he felt not a hint of nausea.

“You see that?” the human called to him over Terezi’s ruffled hair. Karkat gave him a thumbs up, not trusting himself to speak through the tears in his throat.

Later, they sat on the couch eating junk food while watching a movie.

“I think I want to sleep in, like, my bed tonight,” Dave said, hesitation clipping his words.

“Not to sound creepy,” Terezi said, eyes not leaving the screen, “but how will we be able to keep an eye on you, then?”

Dave paused, before grinning, “why don’t you join me there, then?”

Karkat stiffened, but Terezi just howled with laughter.

“If you think you’re getting absolutely anything but sleep, you are dead wrong, Dave,” she cackled.

“But-”

“No buts!” she cried, before pinching his ass, “Now get up. This is going to take forever.”

It took about three minutes, ample time for Karkat to psyche himself out of the whole idea. Dave looked back at him, stuck in the doorway. Terezi was already curled up beside him, hogging blankets. It was perfect, and for a second Karkat was so sure he was going to ruin it.

Then Dave asked him, “Coming?” Karkat knew he’d follow him anywhere.

He sat on the edge of the bed and let Terezi push him into a relaxed-looking position.

“Well, this is nice,” Terezi said, poking Karkat’s tense back.

“Oof,” he replied, “Leave me alone.”

“When was the last time you relaxed?”

“Never,” he replied, “My anxiety is vintage.”

Dave laughed and slid his white fingers into Karkat’s, effectively silencing him. Terezi grinned at him slyly. They all sat silently for a moment, basking in what could be happiness.

“Hey,” Dave piped up, “Since you’re both my bitches now, do you think you could carry the TV in here?”

“Wow, fuck,” Karkat said, “For a second I actually thought we were going to have a moment, but apparently you couldn’t let that happen, Strider.”

“A moment? Please, I know I leave you both completely speechless. If I hadn’t spoken up we would have been sitting in silence for hours on end.”

“I’ll show you speechless-”

“The shock would kill me; I don’t think you’ve ever shut up in the entire time I’ve known you.”

“We’ll I guess I’m like my cousin in that respect.”

 _Shit_. _Me and my big fucking mouth…_

“Oh, Karkat,” Terezi said.

 _God, what an awful joke,_ he thought to himself, feeling his walls go up, _what do I think I’m even doing here?_

“Hey,” Dave said, meeting his eyes with red. _Red like the blood in the streets…_

Before he could shut himself out, he felt it. Dave wrapping weak arms around him, Terezi leaning over and hugging his other side. They breathed in unison; Karkat unthinkingly joined their rhythm. _In. Out. In. Out._

The anxiety abated, leaving just sorrow as they held him.

“He was such an idiot,” Karkat whispered, both hoping they’d hear and praying they wouldn’t, “Never took one precaution. Held meetings in the street when the crowds got too big for this place. God, it was like he thought we were a fucking democracy. He was so naïve, until…I saw it all happen. I saw him go from my kind, loving cousin to this insane animal. If he’d have gotten free he would have torn the planet apart stone by stone.”

He cried, and even the tears were red. Terezi held him so tightly, like she could mend his heart if she applies enough pressure. Dave’s embracewas gentle, like hands cupping something broken. They're both right.

“He was such an idiot,” Karkat sobbed, “I miss him so fucking much.”

“Same,” Dave muttered into his neck.

“What?”

“My brother was exactly the same.”

Karkat realized he wasn't the only one crying.

“He got killed because he wanted to…to spite his commanding officer, Jake English,” Dave had never sounded so cold, so furious, “He looked right into our surveillance, shit wired right into the Condesce’s fucking hard drive, and told them he was a spy. For spite, and he didn’t even think of me. The last time I saw him he was getting dragged away, and he looked at me and just…it was like he’d forgotten I was even there until he saw me. He didn’t even think of what would happen to me when he was gone.”

Terezi’s arms encircled both of them now.

“Fuck both of your inconsiderate families,” she whispered, “I’m your family now, and I’m never going to leave you alone. Ever.”

Dave is still crying as he joked. “God, Terezi, that’s so gay.”

They cry until they breathe together again. And then they sleep.

\---

Dave woke up to warm bodies and wails in the streets.

“Karkat?” he muttered, pushing the other boy off him, “Terezi, wake up.”

They groggily sat up, all morning breath and dazed looks. Yells echoed through the building, through the streets.

“What’s happening?” Karkat asked.

“I’ll check it out,” Terezi said, already getting up.

“We’ll all go,” Dave told her.

“No, you’re staying here.”

“I walked yesterday-”

“Across the apartment, I don’t think so.”

“Karkat can support me.”

Human and troll red eyes fixed on Karkat.

“Uh,” he swallowed, “If we leave without him, he’ll probably just follow us.”

Terezi threw her hands up, while Dave fist bumped Karkat before kissing him.

“Who’s using the rewards system, now?” Terezi asked.

She helped Dave up before kissing him on the cheek.

On the street level, the crowd threatened to separate them. They clung together, Dave in the middle, supported by both of them.

The human river shot straight to the centre of Alternia, but on the way, they saw what was causing the panic.

“Is that-” Karkat started, looking up at the sky in terro.

“That’s a human fleet,” Dave told them, as the black masses in the sky grew and grew.

Panic rose, and the streets became harder and harder to navigated as a group of three.

“There’s the school,” Terezi remarked, and they went inside.

In the classroom, they found everyone there but the teacher. Aradia and Sollux sat together at the back of the class, holding each other close. The Beforus trolls turned when Dave entered.

“What the fuck are you still doing here?” Vriska asked, standing.

For a moment Dave thought they would have to run, until he saw the blue streaks of her tears.

“They’re going to take you home,” she shot at him, “You’ve won.”

“I haven’t won anything, Vriska.”

That was when the first explosion hit, far away like thunder, but enough to shake the ground.

“Holy fuck,” Karkat whispered, while Terezi stood speechless.

“We have to get out of here,” Dave told them.

“Where would we go?” Terezi asked, “There’s nowhere to hide.”

Dave looked at Terezi and the other blue bloods.

“Maybe we don’t have to hide,” he said, running to the window and looking out on the descending army.

“What?” Karkat asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Look,” he told him, “That’s a low-flying bomber. If I go out there-”

“Oh, fuck no”

“-If they saw me, they’d stop. I can make a case for you, for all of you. Amnesty, something! The Condesce herself pardoned me, it shows that trolls are capable of lenience, of humanity.”

“What about your injuries?” Vriska asked, in an unrecognizable tone. It could have been regret.

Dave swallowed. “What injuries? I’m fit as a fucking fiddle.”

Vriska looked at him, then at Terezi, and nodded.

“Terezi?” Karkat asked her, reaching out to touch her arm, “Terezi, please. This is insane. We can’t let him do this.”

Her eyes were shining as more explosions hit, closer this time. “It’s like you said at the apartment,” she told him, “If we stay, he’ll probably just go out without us. What are we going to do, stop him?”

Karkat looked violent for a moment, looked like he himself would put Dave back into their apartment hospital if it meant stopping him. And then he melted, and Dave knew he’d won.

“I’m sorry,” he told the trolls, “But I’ve got to try.”

“You’ve got to try?” Terezi shot at him with her old fire, “We’re coming with you.”

\---

The street had cleared when Karkat helped Dave to the middle of the road, Terezi on his other side. The other trolls cowered on the sidelines. With the bombs exploding every couple minutes, it felt safer to be on the ground than in their building.

“I know you said you guys would come,” Dave said, “But I’ve got to stand here alone. They have to see me waving them down; I don’t know what they’d think if they saw you two holding on to me, and I can’t risk it.”

It was logic, and they all hated it. They all nodded.

It was Terezi who reached out first, hugging Dave gently as Karkat looked at him over her shoulder. She drew back and kissed him long, languidly, like goodbye. Then she stepped back to melt into Karkat’s side, like she was the one needing support. All three of them needed a crutch.

“Got a kiss goodbye for me?” Dave asked Karkat.

“We’ll see when you get back,” he replied, holding his hand out for a fist bump.

Dave took his hand, held it up to his mouth and kissed the boy’s knuckles. Karkat’s face went weak, but he didn’t move forward.

Terezi and him turned and walked away, leaving Dave alone in the centre of the street.

He looked at the sky, remembering Earth. Swimming and Rose. _Rose would like this crew I’ve got,_ he thought, just as the bomber flew into view.

It was marking a straight path along the road. Perfect. Although Dave knew they couldn’t hear him inside the space-proof craft, he started to yell. He waved his arms, felt his scars pull dangerously, but hold.

“HEY, EARTHLINGS,” he screamed, “I KNOW YOU’RE NOT COMING IN PEACE, BUT A FRIENDLY FACE IS HERE TO TELL YOU TO STOP THAT SHIT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”

He heard nervous titters from his sidelined audience. The bomber didn’t seem to react.

“NOW WOULD BE A GREAT TIME,” Dave yelled, voice already hoarse, “TO NOT BOMB THE ONLY O.G. ON ALTERNIA, THANKS!”

His waving was frantic, and he let out a moan as he felt blood on his side.

“I AM HUMAN, GOD DAMN IT! I’M HUMAN, AND ALL THESE BASTARDS ARE HALF HUMAN. SO SAVE US, FOR FUCKS SAKES! STOP THE FUCKING WAR!”

The bomber pulled up. A shocked silence fell on the street, before the trolls started to cheer. Dave looked back and caught a glimpse of Terezi and Karkat embracing before his vision blacked out.

A bomber passed directly overhead, blocking out the weak Alternian sunlight. The smile melted off Dave’s face.

A body hit him from the side half a second later.

“Oh fuck,” Karkat said, gently holding Dave’s bleeding side, “Oh shit, I’m so sorry.”

Dave could have looked up, but he looked at Karkat instead and traced his cheek with his fingers.

“Got a kiss for me now, stranger?” he asked, half choking on tears.

Karkat leaned in and their lips met, furious, passionate and gentle all at once. Dave closed his eyes.

\-----

A body smashed into Terezi, pressing her into the asphalt, and a moment later the bomb rocked the street. She’d been about to run to Dave when she’d been pushed to the ground and covered. There wasn’t time to fight before everything was rent to rubble.

The world went black and technicolour, and then it was over.

The smell of blueberry was in her nose and the taste of blood was in her mouth. Blue blood. Terezi pushed Vriska’s body off of her own and screamed. The noise was drowned out by the landing of the bomber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i sincerely hope you read the archive warnings


	11. Diplomatic Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life moves on / and there's something to it even when those you love are gone

**Occasionally, information needed to be exchanged between sides in the War. As a result, many ideas were attempted. Wireless communication between the troll planet Alternia and Earth were a failure. Even the slightest connection posed a threat for hacking and finding one another’s battle plans. The deliverance of specifically marked information ships was also unsuccessful, because often they were destroyed before they could meet their target. As well, the trust in such transport ships is often not well founded. One specific incident saw a ship seemingly carrying a harmless message explode with the force of 5 atomic bombs and take out a chunk of the human fleet. The method most recently attempted was the one sided exchange of two orphans of the war. Two humans, Dirk and Dave Strider, were successfully settled on a remote location on Alternia. Dirk was in charge of receiving hand written letters of confidence, and then scanning and sending those letters to Earth using a private wireless line. In recent events, Dirk was found to be reconfiguring his equipment to enter the Trollian weblines, sending this information to the human government. He was killed for his treason, and as a result, there currently stands no diplomatic speech between humanity and Trollkind.**

\-----

“I betray no one,” she told the human pilot.

The man sneered back at her.

“You mean you’re not already defecting to the winning side?” he laughed, “Isn’t cunning all you’re good at?”

She was burning. She was numb. “Just follow me.”

She quelled the fear and pain that threatened to crush her and led the pilot to the crater. He didn’t come as close as her, and she herself couldn’t bring herself to move any closer.

“What the fuck…” he breathed as he saw what she can smell on the morbid air: red. So much red.

She heard him radio others, their landings, them coming closer and passing her. She smelled the white of a medic, heard the clink of glass and the buzz of an electrical modem.

“What is it?” she heard the pilot ask, all bravado washed away.

“It’s troll blood.”

There was a collective exhale. Terezi just waited.

“And human.”

Silence, then words bubbled up. Angry and confused.

Someone reached out and grabbed her arm. She expected to be hit, hurt, and she winced away but no blow comes. The grip on her arm would almost be gentle if it weren’t so insistent.

“What happened?” the pilot asked, voice bare with confusion.

“I’ll tell you later,” she said, “I just need some time.”

She stepped closer and fell to her knees on broken pavement. Her cheeks were wet but she couldn’t feel the tears.

She reached out, hand shaking. All she could smell is red. All she could hear was the voices of her enemies.

Red is for enemy and bloodshed. Red is for passion and love.

Terezi’s hand was wet too now. She reached out her other hand and lowered her head, almost kneeling prostrate in the bombarded street. She could feel the tears now, the racking sobs tearing her rib cage. Her wails echoed in the street, and she can smell sorrow, sympathy, pity.

It was the calming smell of forest green that approached, finally, when her throat was sore and her body shook. Kanaya lifted her from the blood and rubble, carrying her like she carried Dave not a day before.

“He was so strong, Kanaya,” she whispered, voice lost and fragile as life.

“You are strong, too, Terezi,” Kanaya’s voice betrayed unshed tears, “You are strong.”

\-----

Terezi Pyrope stared at the government officials with sightless eyes.

She’d been led to the human camp by the pilot, the medic and a superior officer. Kanaya hadn’t left her side.

“Please state your name for the record,” a harsh voice commanded.

“Terezi Pyrope.”

“Who are you?”

“I am a teal-blooded troll from the capital city Alternia of planet Ceres, the hub of her Imperial Condescension’s Solar Empire.”

“What did you see this day, at the bombing of Alternia and the surrender of your Empire?”

Kanaya’s hand squeezed her shoulder in reminder: _you are strong_.

“I saw the warships from Karkat Vantas’ apartment.”

“Who is Karkat Vantas?”

“Cousin to revolutionary Kankri Vantas of the Peace Rebellion. Low blood. My…” another squeeze “My partner.”

The judgement in the room cloyed her nose. She almost wanted to smile. She heard Dave say _just you fucking wait, you old codgers_. She wanted to laugh. Then she wanted to die.

“Continue.”

“We went outside with everyone else and brought Dave. Dave Strider.”

There was a pause.

“We will continue this matter another time.”

She was struck dumb for a moment, before she remembered just who Dave was. She smelled confusion on the humans. They didn’t know about the Striders. And this bastard was about to cover them up.

Now Terezi smiled.

“Dave Strider is the brother of the late Dirk Strider, the human spy and diplomat sent to Alternia by General Jake English.”

Even Kanaya smelled shocked.

“You shut your mouth, troll. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The inquisitor’s voice sounded sure, but he smelled fearful. Like prey.

“Dirk Strider was killed for espionage against the Empire, but his brother was given mercy by the Condesce. He was allowed to join troll society.” She paused. “He was also my partner.”

Commander English- if that was who was interviewing her- smelled pale as death.

“She lies. All trolls lie.”

“That’s a pretty specific lie she’s concocted, General,” the officer said calmly. The pilot left the room and Jake deflated. He perhaps could have had them killed up until that moment. The pilot had anticipated, faster than the commander of the fleet.

She could taste the power shift on the air as the officer asked her, “What happened to Mr. Strider?”

“He was injured by a mob. Karkat and I healed him as best we could.”

The voice deepened with sympathy, “And what happened today?”

“We went out to see the ships. Everyone was outside. We never thought…” _You would shoot us like fish in a bowl_.

“Dave walked to the middle of the street. I guess he thought if they saw him they would…” _Stop._

“Karkat ran after him, and so did I but someone stopped me, shielded me. That was when the bomb hit. Your medic can attest to the rest.”

“Thank you for your testimony, Ms. Pyrope.”

She breathed in. “No problem.”

Kanaya helped her up and out the doorway. She gasped, and Terezi smelled metal and gear and human.

“Terezi,” Kanaya whimpered, “There are maybe 50 human soldiers in the hall.”

A tense note held in the air as troll faced human. Two to fifty.

Then the pilot broke through the ranks. Terezi recognized the smell of righteous fury.

“Gents,” he said, “This is the girl who just implicated General English for the murder of Strategist Dirk Strider. I think she deserves a salute, don’t you?”

Terezi heard the shuffle as fifty humans held up their arms to her.

“Now get the fuck out of her way,” the pilot sneered, before an even louder shuffle cleared a path from the dark interrogation room out to daylight.

\-----

Terezi doesn’t think it will ever stop hurting. Why would it? Even as she brings General English to trial, there’s no revenge or justice great enough.

The Condesce absconds from her throne and a troll republic rises. Terezi isn’t old enough or educated enough to serve in the Senate, despite a ridiculous amount of support from a society that idolizes symbolic leaders.

She puts herself through school anyways, and after that, teaches herself human law as well. She becomes senator, speaker, and finally, the role she craves: diplomat. Not the first, but undeniably the best.

On Earth and Ceres they know her as Redglare for her glasses and eyes, eyes they say see everyone equally and everything objectively.

It’s not true of course: she can’t see anything.

She grows up. In living a long life, it almost makes it all hurt more, knowing how little her boys got to experience. She works, ceaselessly, for equity, for righteousness. For something to hold onto.

Kanaya worked with her for a while, before meeting the human diplomat, Rose, on delegation to Earth. Now they live together on a dreamlike island in the Pacific Ocean. Terezi has never been, but she’s been invited countless times.

She doesn’t sleep much, mostly for fear of dreams. She has good memories of Dave and Karkat, but nothing peaceful. She could kill her earlier self for debating nothing but politics with Dave until his injury. Everything is tainted: either with her ceaseless propaganda or his wound, a symbol of her words in action.

They have no peace. There are no memories of health and conversation. There was no funeral, and Terezi has nothing to bury and nothing to remember that doesn’t cut her even deeper.

This is why the dreams hurt so much; because they are lies.

She was typing furiously only a second ago. Now she walks in sunlight.

She can always see in her dreams.

She sees water sparkling and grass sharply green. It’s Terran nature, which she’s only ever smelled snatches of from afar. Her work comes in paper, glass and aluminum.

Trees are growing in copses around the field. There is a white sand beach in the distance that positively glows in the sunlight. She averts her eyes from the sparkle and dance of the waves, and sees them.

They are sitting under a tree on a white blanket, a picnic basket placed between them. Dave is lazy, lying down with his shades propped up on his forehead. His skin shines in the light. Karkat sits cross-legged, his sleeves rolled up. Their fingers are loosely knit together. She smiles at Karkat’s comfort. He never was able to relax into affection like this before.

She walks towards them. They are a picture, and perfect.

She is close when Karkat turns and smiles at her. There is no anger in his expression. Dave’s candy-red eyes open and he sits up expectantly.

Karkat reaches out his hand, his skin gray like hers. She moves to take it.

“We’ll wait for you, Terezi,” he tells her with a soft smile.

“Don’t worry,” Dave tells her, eyes open and inviting, “We’ll see you soon.”

Her fingers never once brush Karkat’s before she wakes. She never touches him. She never will again.

She is alone, head on her desk, sobbing again. Telling them she will be there soon, only a little longer, she just needs one more win, one more case closed.

She is a coward, maybe, she thinks.

This is when her computer screen lights up with a message. It’s from Kanaya. It’s just a picture, but the image is enough to make her close her documents and file a leave of absence. There’s nothing even to grant: she’s worked ten years without vacation.

She leaves the computer on her desk after sending her reply and estimated time of arrival.

\-----

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she tells Kanaya when she lands on Earth.

It takes a couple of days to journey over land and sea to reach their island. They land on a white sand beach and Kanaya leads her to their house in the hills. Rose greets her warmly, like its only been a short absence and not years of silence between them. She seems to understand.

“Would you like to meet him?” she asks, “He’s out in the field.”

Terezi walks alone through the field. She spots the young boy that her friends have adopted. A human first, they’d decided after much debate. Perhaps a troll sibling in a few years, if possible.

“Hello, John,” she says to the boy sitting under the tree.

He looks up with blue eyes that smell like water. “Legislacerator Redglare,” he says so seriously, she has to laugh. He grins like that was his intention all along.

“You can call me Terezi, John,” she tells him.

“I know,” he replies cheekily.

She sits with him as he reads. The ocean sparkles. The sand gleams. The green of the island is unbelievable; the apple smell makes her think she never has to eat again.

She has a dark thought.

“John?”

“Yeah, Terezi?”

“Could you…pinch my arm?”

He looks at her, puzzled. “You think you’re dreaming?” She nods. “You’re really not,” he tells her, but dutifully pinches her arm anyways.

They sit in silence once again.

“Terezi?”

“Yeah, John?”

“Could you…” she looks at him, and he’s struggling, “Mom and Mama told me not to ask, but…do you think you could tell me about Dave and Karkat?”

It threatens to overwhelm her, until she realizes that this isn’t a dream. This can’t be snatched away.

He’s seen the emotion in her eyes, “You don’t have to, I’m sorry-”

“No,” she stops him, “It’s alright.”

She can almost see them here in paradise, on their white blanket.

_“We’ll wait for you.”_

Just a little longer, she tells her boys, before turning to John and sharing their memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This has been a looooong experience for a first story fic. Thanks to anyone who stuck around throughout the terribly sporadic updates. Its been a ride.   
> Also holy crap sorry to anyone who may have accidentally stumbled on this while looking for post-Homestuck fluff.  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
